The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld: book review

The Discomfort of Evening (2020) is set on a small village farm in the Netherlands.

The narrator Jas begins at the age of ten, during a wintery Christmas with her parents and siblings: brothers Matthies and Obbe, and younger sister Hanna.

Matthies is an excellent ice skater, but he has an accident and dies. Jas, Obbe, and Hanna cope with their loss in different ways. This is the story of Jas’s life after her brother’s death.

Obbe hangs a note on his bedroom door that says ‘Do not disturb.’ He doesn’t want to talk to anyone. Jas sleeps in Matthies bedroom in the attic. Jas stops taking off her coat. Hanna is the only one who understands why she has stopped taking off her coat.

After the holidays, Jas has to go back to school. What is she going to tell people? She fakes cheeriness.

Jas reads a lot, and she likes heroes. She begins to have fantasies. Her fantasies become more and more disturbing. She creates the dark world of The Plan. ‘Are we fragile?’ she asks Hanna. Her sister responds, ‘As fragile as a blade of straw.’

This is an extremely dark and extremely disturbing novel: briefly-told, boldly-written, and emotionally intense.

MARTINA NICOLLS

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MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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