Small World - Softcover

Suter, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099449129 ISBN 13: 9780099449126

Publisher: Random House UK, 2003

Synopsis

At first they thought Konrad’s absentmindedness was due to his drinking. For years, he had been a benign parasite on the Koch family. But when their villa burns down because of Konrad’s forgetfulness, Elvira Senn, matriarch of the Koch family, puts him on a strict regime. No longer allowed his daily tipple, Konrad recovers and even falls in love. But then his condition deteriorates, and Alzheimer’s takes hold. As he loses his present, he regains his distant past, and this is what Elvira fears the most. As they wait for him to rewind to the crucial moment, his life is in danger from far more than a debilitating disease.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Translated from the German by Sandra Harper.

The moving story of a man drawn back into his past by an illness that robs him of his grasp of the present.

Konrad Lang, a man in his sixties, is haunted by images of his early childhood, and he cannot remember his immediate past. Memory tugs him back to the villa of his adoptive "family," the Kochs. Konrad grew up with Thomas Koch, rich and spoiled heir to the family's fortune. Konrad was Thomas's playmate and in due course became the family's whipping-boy and now the Kochs don't want to know -- except for Elvira Senn, the all-powerful matriarch, who has reason to be worried by Konrad's lucid spells, and then Simone, the newcomer to the family, who takes pity on Konrad and threatens to uncover secrets the family would like to see hidden forever.

Martin Suter was born in Zürich in 1948 and now lives in Spain and Guatemala.

From the Inside Flap:

ping psychological thriller, Alzheimer’s, the disease that turns those closest to the sufferer into total strangers, takes hold of Konrad. The story depicts a man with a void in his soul whose only salvation lies buried deep within him.

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House UK
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0099449129
• ISBN 13: 9780099449126
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256