6/11/2023 0 Comments The Twin by Gerbrand BakkerMaybe it was just one incident in a series of events that made Father conclude I wasn’t suited to succeed him. I went skating and treated the farmhand as an equal. That might have been the day that Father – simply because I was having fun doing something else – decided for himself that Henk would be the farmer, even though I was the oldest, if just by a couple of minutes. For Henk was the apple of his father’s eye, the confident and assured farmer born with green fingers while Helmer struggled to find his place except when he was with Henk. It’s almost 30 years since his twin brother Henk was killed in a car crash sending not only their family off kilter but also Helmer’s university life and dreams. Helmer van Wonderen is a 57 year old farmer living near Lake IJssel just north of Amsterdam with his bedridden father. One of Holland’s foremost contemporary writers, The Twin is Gerbrand Bakker’s debut novel translated from the Dutch by David Colmer which won the 2010 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was April’s choice for my book group, The Riverside Readers. Its here on this road now, but it might just as well be 1967 or 1930.’ ‘Look at this farm,’ he said to his friend, a redhead with freckles and sunburnt shoulders, it’s timeless. I was standing at the side of the house, unseen, and watched them trying to cut each other off…. It was hot and they had taken off their shirts, the muscles in their arms and shoulders gleamed in the sunlight.
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