Review copy courtesy of Pushkin Press and NetGalley, many thanks.

A surprising experience. At first I didn't think I was going to enjoy this book but it became oddly enjoyable. 1946 Amsterdam. Peace has broken out in Europe and when you'd expect a young man to feel elated, Frits is underwhelmed. We don't have any information about how he spent the war years but we do know that, instead of picking up his studies where he'd been forced to suspend them and looking for a new way of life, he is living with his parents and has an undemanding and uninteresting office job. We follow him through Christmas and New Year, out and about town and at home, hear his sarcastic comments to others and share his self-pitying thoughts, watch his little acts of meanness and spitefulness. But he has survived, that is the main thing, and a new year might bring new beginnings. We just have to hope he gets his act together.

First published in Holland in 1947 and now translated into English for the first time, this unremittingly bleak tale of a young man who finds that his life has no meaning is both compelling and blackly humorous. Frits has a mundane job and leads a monotonous existence. Still living at home with his parents – who are actually quite likeable but who are slowly driving him mad with irritation – Frits is a difficult person to feel any sympathy for at all. Even if we feel empathy with his ennui and existential angst he certainly doesn’t come across as in any way someone the reader could care about. And that surely is the point. Boredom and futility make up his daily existence and in this short novel we get to spend 10 evenings with him as he goes around being generally unpleasant to his long-suffering friends. I loved this book and can quite understand why it is considered a classic of Dutch literature. I can also see why many readers haven’t enjoyed it. The book has little point, just as his life has little point. But I found it quite mesmerising in its atmosphere and the portrait it paints of immediate post-war Holland. A small gem of European literature.