Summer Brother Read online

  -

  A WRY AND FUNNY BOOK ABOUT A DAMAGED FAMILY

  Thirteen-year-old Brian lives in a trailer on a forgotten patch of land with his divorced and uncaring father. His older brother Lucien, physically and mentally disabled, has been institutionalized for years. While Lucien’s home is undergoing renovations, he is sent to live with his father and younger brother for the summer. Their detached father leaves Brian to care for Lucien’s special needs. But how do you look after someone when you don’t know what they need? How do you make the right choices when you still have so much to discover? Summer Brother is an honest, tender account of brotherly love, which will resonate with readers of Rain Man.

  -

  Praise for Summer Brother

  “A writer who crosses the ball with such elegance that there’s no need to hammer it home.”

  De Volkskrant

  “Subtle and refined.”

  NRC Handelsblad

  “Robben’s style is deceptively simple. You don’t have to be an adult to read Summer Brother, yet Robben’s imagery, subtle humor, and surprising plot will connect with the most literate of readers. The novel offers a moving insight into a boyhood that gives pause for reflection.”

  De Standaard

  “Like no other writer, Robben can empathize with the mind of a child and he imbues the reader with this open and uninhibited outlook as the story unfolds.”

  Hebban

  “Summer Brother is a wry and funny book about a damaged family.”

  Algemeen Dagblad

  “Lovingly, Robben shows Brian’s hapless attempts to deal with pills and full diapers, yet all the while he is working mercilessly towards the inevitable climax.”

  VPRO Gids

  “A poignant story about loyalty, disloyalty, solidarity, and puberty.”

  De Limburger

  “A truly gutsy novel.”

  Tzum

  “Summer Brother is a beautiful, modest novel. As he did with You Have Me to Love, Robben will once again win over a young generation of readers with this book. That in itself is praiseworthy.”

  Elsevier

  “Jaap Robben has once again written an overwhelming book.”

  HMC Dagbladen

  “His first novel, You Have Me to Love, was well-received, won prizes, and became a sales success. Summer Brother is a worthy successor and has all the ingredients to follow the same path. Robben knows how to write simply and magnificently—I kept underlining beautiful sentences in the first chapters.”

  Trouw

  Praise for You Have Me to Love

  “You Have Me to Love is an intense and dramatic novel filled with meticulous use of detail and a forensic psychological accuracy. Its power comes from the fierce energy of the narrative structure, the way of handling silence and pain, and the ability to confront the darkest areas of experience with clear-eyed sympathy and care. Jaap Robben handles delicate, dangerous material with subtlety and sympathy, but also with a visionary sense of truth that is masterly and unforgettable.”

  COLM TÓIBÍN

  “I was completely seduced by this novel—it’s raw and harrowing and very moving. Robben is a very powerful writer who reminds me very much of Per Petterson.”

  AIFRIC CAMPBELL

  “Beautiful, just beautiful.”

  GERBRAND BAKKER

  “This is a bold, tender and ambivalent narrative, raw and disturbing, with moments of painful beauty; a taut narrative heavy with a convincing sense of dread.”

  Irish Times

  “You Have Me to Love explores raw and unsettling psychological territory. It is a story that once read will stick with the reader for a long time.”

  Literary Review

  “Moving between child-like speculation and shocking realism, Robben’s novel transports the reader into lives almost beyond imagining in the contemporary world. With echoes of Ian McEwan and Peter Carey, Robben’s tale, already a huge success in the Netherlands, is one to savor and discuss.”

  ALA Booklist

  “A small masterpiece.”

  Harpers Bazaar

  “You Have Me to Love left me gasping, literally, for air. And groping for understanding. A blindingly good novel about the vulnerability of children and the hard truth of the world they inhabit.”

  The King’s English Bookshop

  “A promising novelist has risen. Robben lifts you from your life and sweeps you away, with no chance of escaping.”

  De Morgen

  “An overwhelming debut about lost childhood innocence, You Have Me to Love can be favorably compared to Niccolò Ammaniti’s I’m Not Scared and Ian McEwan’s The Cement Garden.”

  Het Parool

  “A gripping novel that steadily tightens its hold.”

  De Volkskrant

  “Like a record stuck in its groove, it won’t let me go.”

  European Literature Network

  “From the very first sentence it is clear how well debut novelist Jaap Robben writes. His childishly simple yet highly suggestive sentences make You Have Me to Love as stark and foreboding as the island on which it is set.”

  NRC NEXT

  “Unbelievable—a beautiful story, light for all its heaviness, written in a clear and powerful style. A coming-of-age tale in which Robben merges grief, simplicity, and isolation in a phenomenal way.”

  De Telegraaf

  “Robben’s clear sentences and empathic use of language read like poetry: rhythmic, probing, and sonorous.”

  Dagblad van het Noorden

  -

  JAAP ROBBEN is a poet, playwright, performer, and acclaimed children’s author. You Have Me to Love, his first novel for adults, won the 2014 Dutch Booksellers Award, the Dioraphte Prize, and the ANV Award for best Dutch debut. Robben was chosen as one of the featured debut authors at the 2018 Brooklyn Book Festival. Summer Brother, a bestseller in the Netherlands, is his second novel.

  DAVID DOHERTY studied English and literary linguistics in the UK before moving to the Netherlands, where he has been translating all manner of Dutch texts since 1996. He was commended by the jury of the 2017 Vondel Translation Prize for Marente de Moor’s The Dutch Maiden and Jaap Robben’s You Have Me to Love, and was runner-up in 2019 for his translation of Monte Carlo by Peter Terrin.

  -

  AUTHOR

  “I am intrigued by the insurmountability of family relationships. If a romantic relationship ends, you have an ex—but you never have an ex-mother. The relationship remains. In the beginning of this book, the two brothers are strangers. By the end they understand each other, and the reader knows what Lucien means by “moo-wah-wah.” That is perhaps the main purpose I had in writing this book. To create a character who apparently can’t communicate, but whom you eventually learn to understand.”

  TRANSLATOR

  “‘It’s a beautiful flower in your garden / But the most beautiful by far / Is the one growing wild in the garbage dump / Even here, even here we are.’ Shawn Colvin’s voice singing Paul Westerberg’s song was never far from my mind as I worked to capture in English the life and soul Jaap Robben gives to young outsider Brian as he searches for love and connection in a broken world alive with wonder, humor, and unexpected tenderness.”

  PUBLISHER

  “Jaap Robben combines deep sensitivity with a wonderful eye for imagery and atmosphere. His universe is one of children neglected by their parents and abandoned to their fates, but at the same time there is beauty and love to be found in the most unlikely of places. I love the tenderness of his writing, as well as his subtle humor. Jaap Robben is one of the gre
atest contemporary writers to come out of the Netherlands.”

  -

  JAAP ROBBEN

  Summer Brother

  Translated from the Dutch

  by David Doherty

  WORLD EDITIONS

  New York, London, Amsterdam

  -

  Published in the USA in 2021 by World Editions LLC, New York

  Published in the UK in 2021 by World Editions Ltd., London

  World Editions

  New York/London/Amsterdam

  Copyright © Jaap Robben, 2018

  English translation copyright © David Doherty, 2021

  Author portrait © Charlie de Keersmaecker / HH

  This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed therein are those of the characters and should not be confused with those of the author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data is available

  ISBN Trade paperback 978-1-64286-070-2

  ISBN E-book 978-1-64286-081-8

  First published as Zomervacht in the Netherlands in 2018 by Uitgeverij De Geus, Amsterdam

  This book was published with the support of the Dutch Foundation for Literature

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Twitter: @WorldEdBooks

  Facebook: @WorldEditionsInternationalPublishing

  Instagram: @WorldEdBooks

  www.worldeditions.org

  Book Club Discussion Guides are available on our website.

  -

  For my dear son Midas

  -

  1

  I thought we were just going for a drive. Specks of hay drift past the pickup and blow in through the open windows. It’s harvest time but not for us. Rusty heating pipes rattle in the back, along with the shell of a washing machine we picked up yesterday by the side of the road. Dad swerves right and rolls to a halt at the petrol station.

  “Want anything?” he asks as he fills the tank. Mondays are okay because Benoit is on the cash desk. His boss won’t serve us anymore. Says customers like us cost him money.

  A truck piled with hay bales thunders past, flaps a bleached-out canvas banner flogging coffee that’s always on special offer round here. The way that stuff smells, you’d swear they ground it up with roofing tiles.

  “Hiya,” I say to Benoit. A shrill little bell tinkles.

  “You two aren’t allowed in here,” Benoit fuzzes from his glass booth. His mouth is too close to the microphone. “Told you that last time.”

  I point at his mike and waggle my hand next to my ear like I can’t make him out. “I said, you two …” I shake my head and waggle some more. The sacks of charcoal piled around his booth make it look like he’s barricaded himself in. Down the aisle, bunches of flowers are dying by the bucketful. I hang around the fridge packed with energy drinks while Benoit tries to keep tabs on me in the fish-eye mirror below the ceiling. The tinkly doorbell goes nuts again.

  “Benoit!” Dad bellows, like they’re old chums.

  “I was just telling Brian that you …”

  “We’ll take one of these, while you’re at it.” Dad grabs a massive chocolate egg from the bargain bin. “Present for his brother.”

  “Are we going to see Lucien?”

  Dad presses the price tag to the safety glass. “Fifty percent off, don’t forget,” he says, picking at the big red sticker. “Wait a sec, that can stay on. It’s not like his brother will notice.”

  “Okay, okay,” Benoit stammers and rings up the discount.

  “Tie it up nice with a bit of blue ribbon, will you? His brother will like that.”

  “We can’t wrap discounted items.”

  “Red’s fine, too.”

  “Like I said, it’s not allowed.”

  “You want anything else?” Dad shouts over to me.

  I shake my head.

  “Right then, how much do I owe you?”

  Benoit swallows and peers at his cash register. “That comes to thirty-eight twenty-fi—”

  “Here you go.” Dad scoops a handful of coins from the inside pocket of his leather jacket and clatters them into Benoit’s tray. “And not forgetting …” He fishes a folded tenner from his jeans pocket and makes a show of smoothing it out. “Now wrap that thing up, will you? Nice and fancy, like.”

  “I need to count the money first.”

  “It’s just that we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

  Benoit nervously starts sorting the coins.

  Chocolate has smeared the plastic even before we reach the car. Dad strides ahead, blue ribbon fluttering behind him. “Get a move on, Bry.”

  “Are we really going to see Lucien?”

  Benoit emerges from the shop. “I’m seven euros twenty-five short.”

  Dad turns around, but keeps backing toward the car. “Sure you counted right?”

  “It’s short.”

  “Nah, can’t be.” Dad pulls his surprised face. “And we need to get a move on, see. His brother’s waiting.”

  “I’m going to have to write this up.”

  “Steady on, Benny boy. Is this how you treat your loyal customers?” Dad slows his pace. “I’ll drop by tomorrow with the rest.”

  “I won’t be here tomorrow.”

  “Ah-hah,” Dad grins. “But you can make up the difference till next week, right?”

  As we pull out onto the road, Benoit is still standing by the door. Dad shoots him a friendly wave and tops it off with a thumbs-up. Benoit starts to raise a hand but gives up halfway.

  “Why are we going to see Lucien?”

  “About time, I reckoned.”

  My big brother lives in a bed half an hour’s drive from our caravan. The last time we saw him was when he turned sixteen and the time before that must have been Christmas-ish. I mostly remember him sleeping. When he finally woke up, all he did was stare at the tinsel that danced and shone above the radiator by his window. We never go on Christmas Day or his exact birthday in case we run into Mum. Even now, I catch myself hoping her car’s not parked outside.

  Beside the main entrance, the boy with the bulging eyes sits there leering at us. His face is mostly forehead, and dark hair spikes up through the gaps in his leather helmet. He looks unforgiving, like he knows this is our first visit in ages. I always get the jitters when we walk through the door, worried Lucien might be angry we stayed away so long, or afraid something has happened to him and nobody thought to tell us. But mainly because this is more Mum’s territory than ours.

  The white walls are grubby up to hip height, scuffed and dented by wheelchairs, trolleys, and those beds they’re always pushing around. Wheelchairs with all sorts of bits tacked on are parked along the length of the corridor. A bin bag hangs from a trolley piled with trays and plates smeared with food. In a room off to the side, there’s a boy lying on a blue mat, howling at the ceiling. His legs are twisted at a weird angle, like they belong to another body and someone stitched them onto his at the last minute. His arms are outstretched to catch whoever might come crashing through the ceiling tiles.

  “Bry!” Dad is already at the end of the corridor. “Check this out!” The automatic doors keep wanting to swing shut, but because of where he’s standing they jerk back open. Behind him a statue of Our Lady gestures us to slow down, though everyone here moves at a snail’s pace.

  “Isn’t that where Lucien’s room is?” A dull wall of plastic sheeting has been stretched across the side corridor. Someone must have opened a door or a window, because the plastic sucks itself hollow with a
smack, then rustles back into a bulge. The sound of drilling is coming from the other side. A silhouette pushes the shadow of a wheelbarrow.

  “Do you think they moved him? For Christ’s sake … Your mum is supposed to keep us posted.” The cellophane around the chocolate egg crinkles in his fist.

  “Maybe he’s down here somewhere?” We look at names outside random rooms, someone wails behind a door. “Let’s ask at reception.”

  “Where’s our Lucien?” Dad plants the chocolate egg on the counter. “His room’s gone and no one said a word to us.”

  “One moment, please,” the woman answers. “Just need to finish typing this up.”

  Her name tag says she’s Esmée and her blouse is home to the kind of breasts Dad’s sure to crack a joke about. There’s a gleam in his eye already. Esmée hammers the enter key with her index finger, rolls back her chair, and gives us a friendly look.

  “We’re here to visit Lucien.”

  “Lucien Chevalier?”

  “This is his brother.”

  “Oh … a brother,” Esmée says, but she doesn’t look at me. “And who might you be?”

  “The Dad.”

  “Ah, of course …”

  “Is he still here?”

  “He most certainly is. Lucien has been temporarily moved to one-o-six. We’ve had a bit of a reshuffle due to the renovation work.” Before we can ask, she tells us how to get there. “Down this corridor, second corridor on your left, third door on your right.”

  “Cheers.” Dad’s eyes dip to her breasts. He must have cracked that joke in his head, because he gives a little chuckle as he taps two fingers to his forehead. “See you later.”

  The corridors are lined with superheroes whose faces have morphed into passport photos of the residents. “Man, oh man,” Dad sighs. “You don’t get many of them to the pound.”

  “Huh?”

  “Come off it, Bry. You could pitch a tent in the shade of those tits.”

  “One-o-one,” I read out loud. “Here’s one-o-three. Must be down the other end.”