Dr Marc Schlosser is an odious character. He treats his general practice patients with disdain and callously describes procedures in such intimate detail it makes Embarrassing Bodies seem positively discrete by comparison.
Dutch author Herman Koch’s novel – part-satire, part-thriller – is narrated entirely by the doctor, so readers get to know him, his thoughts and opinions as intimately as we do an anal examination. It’s not pretty.
When Schlosser reveals in the first chapter that he has been called to appear before the Board of Medical Examiners over the death of one of his many famous patients, actor Ralph Meier, it hardly seems surprising. But the suspense in Summer House with Swimming Pool lies in a tragedy that occurred months earlier when the doctor, his wife and two teenage daughters joined Meier and his family – which includes two teenage sons – in their Mediterranean holiday house.
While the two men are not exactly close friends, there are other relationship dynamics at play that draw the two families together in this seemingly idyllic beachside location, where a Hollywood director and his much younger girlfriend are also staying. Koch builds the tension with ominous reflections foreshadowing the life-changing events to come:
“Sometimes you run your life back to see at what point it could have taken a different turn. But sometimes there’s nothing at all to run back – you yourself don’t know it yet, but the only button that’s still working is forward. You wish you could freeze the picture … Here, you tell yourself. If I’d said something else … done something else.”
As in his previous best-selling novel The Dinner – in which two couples meet at a fancy Amsterdam restaurant to discuss a terrible thing their sons have done – Koch keeps his readers guessing about the event. There are also similar themes at play, including the minefield created by adolescent urges and impulses, dubious ethics, and the powerful pull of familial bonds.
The narrative contains much dark humour (especially in Schlosser’s misanthropic monologues and the contemptuous depictions of “high art”), but the book also presents some deeply disturbing and challenging notions.
Summer House with Swimming Pool is a compelling read by an author with a sharp and original, provocative style. If you read and enjoyed The Dinner, you will devour this novel with equal relish.
Summer House with Swimming Pool, by Herman Koch, is published by Text, $29.95.
