Summer House with Swimming Pool

Dr. Marc Schlosser is a family practitioner in Holland.

He has a small practice servicing mostly the rich and famous, known for his lenient unquestioning ways and excellent listening skills (he gives you twenty but truthfully only listens for the first five minutes.) Marc begins an unlikely friendship with the Meier family. Ralph, a huge star and his subtly sexy wife Judith with two teenage sons invite the Schlossers to join them at their summer house, with a swimming pool. Marc's two teenage girls hit it off immediately with the boys and his wife Caroline tolerates the bizarre nature found in the entire cast. The visiting director Stanley and his model girlfriend, Emmanuelle, 40 years his junior add to the scene. And while they eat and drink themselves merry Marc becomes paranoid about his daughters, his wife and the seductive Judith. In a world where most problems are solved with a magic pill or another drink, Marc finds himself in an ethical dilemma. Although it continues with a dark sort of humor, the subject matter of possible rape and a most probable pedophile in his midst, Marc's heart and soul truly belong to his daughters whom he will do anything to protect from the crazy world revolving too quickly around them as they reach adolescence. This imaginative cast of characters is very much written in a style all his own, author Herman Koch definitely had me entranced in this story. Like some foreign films, this book inherently feels European in style and writing. An excellent novel that left me thinking about the plot, of which there are many threads to tie together.

"I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review."