25/02/20: Bernard MacLaverty – Midwinter Break (2017)


The slow-motion disintegration of a marriage. He drinks too much. She seeks spiritual enlightenment. A retired couple, they are in Amsterdam for a brief holiday, but their problems and their differences are only magnified by the change of routine.

MacLaverty is brilliant on the minutiae of life, and how these details reveal bigger truths about the two characters.

It’s also a book about the uncertainties of growing older.