Post Mortem
Emiel Steegman, an unknown writer with touches of Peter Terrin, is seeking a way to escape a compulsory dinner. He cancels at the last moment ‘due to a rather difficult time for the family’. A nasty feeling comes over him: is he inviting trouble in doing so? The thought gives him a great idea for a new novel about T, who becomes famous with an existential crime novel and increasingly worries about what his future biographer will write about him.
And so Terrin sets the stage for his double play with fiction and reality. One afternoon, his daughter Renée is diagnosed with a brain stroke and fiction overtakes reality. Steegman describes the weeks following the stroke.
An ingenious, rich book, beautifully put togetherDagblad van het Noorden
In the next part, the narrative situation shifts to the biography of Steegman, who has by then gained international fame with the novel ‘T’. The biographer watches home videos of and with Steegman and Renée in the hope of discovering more about Steegman’s secret, which concerns the murder or suicide of a woman Steegman knew in his youth and whom he describes in ‘T’.
‘Post Mortem’ is an intense and ingenious novel about a writer’s inspiration, a father’s love for his daughter and a man’s fear of losing his life after his death.
Not only the blood-curdling account of a father in agony but also a novel about a writer. A matchless novel, like a hall of mirrors.VPRO Gids
Three perfectly controlled puzzle pieces that will never entirely fit togetherDe Groene Amsterdammer
