I picked this up on a whim while on vacation. It was in the boat's library and I figured I would give it a shot. I went into this expecting something dark and creepy due to the description and the fact that it was called a 'European Gone Girl' on the back. I have not read that book but have heard it is really good and it's on my TBR. This started out creepy. The first few chapters made me uncomfortable in the best possible way but unfortunately, that did not last. The book switches between the perspectives of a few characters but it often isn't clear immediately which perspective a chapter/part is focusing on which took me out of the story while I tried to figure out where I was.

This book centers on Mr. M. He wrote a book called Payback which was based on a real (in the story) case of an obsessive teacher gone missing and the suspects of his disappearance. This story centers on the life of this writer as his neighbor becomes obsessed with watching him and 'giving him more information'. The premise seemed interesting enough, but I wasn't a fan of the execution.

Things I loved: surprising ending, twists, dual timeline, Amsterdam (the setting was done well), the main character is a writer

Things I didn't love: the ending was not the best, most of the characters (theme lately in the books I have read), too long

I am happy that I read this one but also could have lived without it. ( )

An odd sort of book, no real likable characters, but was interesting and engaging. :) ( )

Wait for the end, do not skip to the end. ( )

Now in his eighties, M, the Dutch novelist, is famous and respected despite the fact that his most significant literary triumphs are behind him. Best known for his novel, Payback, M continues to add to his literary legacy while leading a quiet existence with his daughter and much younger wife, Ana, in their urban apartment. But M is about to face an unpleasant reckoning. Payback, published several decades ago, was a best-selling fictional treatment of a notorious real-life incident: two high school students, Herman and Laura, were accused of murder after their teacher, Mr. Landzaat, vanished. Laura and Landzaat had been involved sexually, albeit briefly: after only a couple of weeks Laura decided to end the affair. But Landzaat was unable to accept rejection, and his subsequent behaviour became obsessive and irrational. Ultimately, he tracked Laura down at her family’s rural property and one snowy evening drove there to confront the two teenagers, who were staying at the house on their own. He was never seen again. However, since no body was ever found the police were unable to assemble a case and charge the two with a crime. In Payback, M fills in the blanks, imagining a sequence of events resulting in the teacher’s disappearance. As Koch’s novel opens, a neighbour in the apartment building is fixated on M and, using lies and subterfuge, insinuates his way into the novelist’s life. At this point, since we know nothing about his motives, we can only wonder, to what end? Koch’s narrative builds suspense as the neighbour finds ways to observe the novelist’s comings and goings and get ever closer to M and his family. But when the story switches gears to focus on Laura and Herman and their high school antics of forty years ago, much of this tension is frittered away. Indeed, Koch relies on a multitude of perspectives to tell a lurid tale that weaves an intricate web of deceit. The problem is not necessarily that none of the characters is likeable or admirable. In other of his works that have been made available to English readers—such as The Dinner and Summer House with Swimming Pool—Koch populates his story with deceivers and conniving manipulators to great effect. These are gripping novels in which little is as it seems, and everyone has something to hide. But in Dear Mr. M, Koch’s characters are not just despicable, they are tiresome and tediously loquacious. Koch spends far too much time with the teenagers, establishing that young Herman is a smart but calculating and narcissistic schemer and that Laura’s attraction to him is ill-advised. M himself is petty and arrogant and burns with envy at the successes of his literary colleagues and rivals. Throughout, Koch is having so much fun describing the bad behaviour of his characters that he forgets to give the reader any reason to care what happens to them, with the result that when the mystery of Landzaat’s disappearance—the novel’s central issue—is finally resolved, the reader, worn down by excessive detail and scene after pointless scene that fails to advance the plot, greets it with a shrug. No doubt this is a novel that would have benefitted from a ruthless and uncompromising edit because we sense that lurking somewhere within the glut of words is a powerful and lively drama. Though it’s also possible this might not have been enough to save it because, apart from the flaccid narrative, some elements of the story come across as ill-conceived and are not entirely persuasive. Readers approaching the works of Herman Koch for the first time will find their interest amply rewarded by the two titles mentioned above. But anyone who decides to take up Dear Mr. M is advised to lower their expectations. ( )

Een boek dat ik met een dubbel gevoel heb uitgelezen. Harry Mulisch wordt tamelijk flauw afgeschilderd en er zit een interviewgedeelte in dat ronduit saai is (zo is het vast ook bedoeld). Maar het is ook een grappig boek en slim gemaakt, door Harry Mulisch te imiteren en er een eigen draai aan te geven. Dus tja, het was te dik maar het is ook knap. ( )