Small World - Hardcover

Suter, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1860468810 ISBN 13: 9781860468810

Publisher: Harvill Pr, 2002

Synopsis

At first, they put Konrad's absentmindedness down to an immoderate fondness for alcohol. For years he had been a benign parasite on the Koch family, first as the childhood playmate of Thomas, heir to the Koch family fortune, later as caretaker of the Koch family holiday villa on Corfu. And they, in their turn, had used him as the mood took them. But when the villa burns down because of Konrad's forgetfulness, Elvira Senn, the matriarch of the Koch family, puts him on a strict regime. No longer allowed his daily tipple, Konrad recovers and even falls in love again. But then his condition deteriorates. He can't find his way out of the supermarket, let alone his way home. Soon Konrad doesn't even recognize his new lover. Alzheimer's, the disease that turns the people closest to the sufferer into total strangers, has taken hold.
As he loses his present he regains his far past, and this is what Elvira Senn fears the most. As they watch and wait for him to rewind to the crucial moment, his life is in danger from more than the 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: Harvill Pr
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1860468810
• ISBN 13: 9781860468810
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248