Preliminary thoughts: A curiously spectral novel that has at its center a "blankness", an emptiness that the reader keeps searching for, even though it is well beyond the reader's grasp. Herman, our protagonist, is in search of his "mysteriously dematerialised" family: his wife, Rose, and his son. The townsfolk introduce him to the ways of the town, initially promising him his family, but soon coercing him to "forget".

It brings a dreariness, exhaustion that feels unusual for a novel of this length. But the exhaustion is rewarding in the sense that it provokes a sense of alarm, a longing for detail. A dark, funereal, damp novel that spoke to me very intimately.

Thanks to Edelweiss and Two Lines Press for the DRC.