The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

After Matthies dies in an ice-skating competition, his family disintegrates into grief, neglect, and religious damnation.

Rijneveld’s language is vivid and surprising, but this is not a book for the squeamish reader.

The Discomfort of Evening is set on a Dutch dairy farm and is narrated by Matthias’s ten-year-old sister Jas Mulder. She is fascinated by death, but appalled by the idea of losing her parents. The only way to keep them safe, is to offer sacrifices to God. But what sort of sacrifice does God want? The three surviving siblings scheme together. Older brother Obbe is more bloody in his approach, Jas is more corporeal. This is not a book for the squeamish reader.

Jas’s mother stops eating. Her father loses himself in work and prayer. The vet has a hungry eye on Jas’s emerging puberty. Afraid of losing any part of herself, Jas becomes chronically constipated and retreats within the cocoon of her red coat. She never takes it off. The neighbours gossip. What’s she hiding under that foul garment?

Fouler still. The siblings explore their bodies, inserting objects and experimenting. It’s clear from the start the narrative is heading for grim territory - the question is: who will survive the family’s grief, and what is the price of salvation?

Rijneveld’s language is vivid and surprising, and I admired how Jas uses farming terms to describe her world. Her mother, for example, weighs a calf and a half … but only a grisly fate awaits an underweight calf.

The Discomfort of Evening was written by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld and translated by Michele Hutchinson. It won the International Booker Prize in 2020.

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