“An ingenious novel about a writer’s inspiration, a father’s love and a man’s fear of losing his legacy.
Emiel Steegman, a midlist author with a handful of novels to his name, is seeking a way to escape a dinner with a party of Estonian writers. He cancels at the last moment ‘owing to a somewhat difficult situation at home’.
A short while later a nasty feeling comes over him: is he inviting trouble for his family? And what if a biographer should stumble upon the correspondence? Would he not suspect that something significant had happened? Increasingly worried by what a future chronicler will have to say, Steegman begins to withdraw from public life.
Steegman’s initial misgivings prove well founded. Because fate does strike. One afternoon, his daughter Renée falls asleep and it proves impossible to wake her…”
Post Mortem by Peter Terrin, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson. Published by MacLehose Press. Out now.
