First published 2009
On a summer day in 1969, the Kaan family gathers outside their North Holland farmhouse to welcome Queen Juliana. The royal visit to their small village becomes magical when the queen touches young Hanne's cheek and shakes hands with her mother Anna. But the celebration turns to horror when the local baker strikes Hanne with his new Volkswagen van during his afternoon delivery rounds. Years later, Jan Kaan returns from Texel on a scorching June day to tend his sister's grave. The family remains split by old wounds and unresolved anger. Should they finally move forward? Will they renew the burial plot? And why won't anyone explain to little Dieke why her grandmother has been lying in the old barn with a bottle of advocaat for a day and a half, refusing to see anyone? Bakker creates an intimate portrait of the Kaan family and the farm where generations have lived and died, exploring how a single moment can divide a family for decades.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, 20th-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, generational-conflict
Setting: North Holland, Texel
Period: 1969, June
272 pages · Paperback · Uitgeverij Cossee