Dear Mr M

A prominent aging writer lives upstairs and the man downstairs writes him oddly intimate letters, detailing how closely he follows the author's life. Because this is Herman Koch, you can trust that this book begins dark and only becomes more sinister as the novel proceeds. The stalker, Herman, has a connection to Mr. M, along with no small amount of resentment. For his part, Mr. M is not a sympathetic character. And while Koch keeps the reader guessing as to the final outcome of the men's encounters, there's no doubt that it will be satisfactorily horrific.

The narration of Dear Mr. M passes between Herman, Mr. M and Herman's high school girlfriend, Laura, whose growing fascination with the odd and manipulative Herman will culminate show more with the disappearance of one of the teachers at their school. How they were involved, however, remains uncertain until the very end of this superbly plotted novel. If you need sympathetic characters, this isn't the book for you, but I found it gripping and impossible to put down. show less

Before getting into spoiler territory I’ll say that this is probably Koch’s most accomplished work that I’ve read so far (The Dinner & Summer House with Swimming Pool being the others). The construction is a bit odd and the story isn’t told in a linear way, so those easily confused need not apply. If you can follow the story you’ll find a lot to like including a lovely send-up of the publishing world (at least as it exists in the Netherlands, but it probably applies everywhere) and how making movies based on books wrecks a reader’s imagination. There’s also quite a bit on a writer’s fear of becoming washed up; a fraud who couldn’t ever really write anyway. The main thrust of the book, however, is about obsession and show more the illusion of control.

Spoilers on the move, especially in the last paragraph.

The story starts out with a letter to Mr. M telling him that while his famous book, Payback, was a success and is now included in college coursework, it’s not entirely accurate; the letter writer has additional material that Mr. M could use to update his book. After that comes the story of some teenagers forging their way through a love triangle and the aftermath of an affair between a girl and a history teacher. The gulf between American teens and Dutch teens must be immense because Laura, Herman, David, Stella and the rest are very sophisticated. Laura is manipulative beyond what I think the normal emotions of a teenage girl would allow. She’s very calculating and by the end she gets what she wants. That Landzaat was so manipulative himself was a little surprising. He wanted Laura and Herman to suffer, but the situation got loose on him and in the end he got way more than he intended.

Interspersed with the “material” are vignettes out of Mr. M’s current life. His wife who is 40 years his junior. His inability to do anything so simple as work the microwave. His waning literary reputation. The fact that the letter writer and downstairs neighbor is watching all of this and reporting with disdain and not a little jealousy. Never along the way does Mr. M acknowledge who his neighbor really is; Herman of the teenagers in the “material”. The one who was arrested, along with Laura, in the disappearance of the history teacher, but released due to lack of evidence. In the end it is revealed that he does in fact know what Herman looks like and should by all accounts recognize his neighbor, but he’s silent on this fact. It’s a bit weird and I don’t know why it was done.

While Payback is largely fiction, it’s revealed that Mr. M could have had access to more of the facts than he availed himself of. He never contacted any of the kids involved because he says it would ruin his fictional universe. He needed to tell the story in his own way, needed it to be fiction not another In Cold Blood. The revelation at the end where Mr. M admits to having met the missing professor after being sent a letter from him is very dramatic, but I had a feeling that was coming so it didn’t surprise me, but it was gratifying all the same. show less

A high school senior and his girlfriend are accused (but never taken to court) for the disappearance of their teacher. A local author writes an "In Cold Blood"-style novel, loosely based on the true story and what the author imagines may have happened. Years pass and many people assume the book is the gospel truth. Intriguingly, the now aged author finds himself stalked by a mysterious man.

Fans of Koch's "The Dinner" will find much here to enjoy. Solid writing with careful character development, shifts between those teen-aged years and now, from character to character, with the surprise twist at the end. As we delve into each main player's psyche, the tension ratchets up.

I quite enjoyed this one, particularly the ending, I appreciated show more how it delves into what responsibility a writer has to his own creative process, and also to those actual people behind those Ripped From the Headlines stories. To what extent is it permissible to change significant portions to improve on plot? To add or remove characters? Lots to ponder here. show less

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 show more 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. show less

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is the third Herman Koch book that I have read (the other two being "Summer House With Swimming Pool" and "The Dinner"), and I find him to be consistent in producing books with intriguing premises but which fall short of expectations.

"Dear Mr. M" is told from many different perspectives. You need to know this going into the book, or you will get easily confused like I was, until I could figure out who was talking in each chapter. There are a number of story lines happening concurrently:
1) M is a writer, once renowned but now fading into the background. His most successful book was "Payback," a book about a teacher who has an affair with one of his high school students. The teacher show more disappears and is never found. The book is based loosely on real-life events that took place in M's lifetime. Why are we learning about Mr. M when nothing seems to be happening in his life?
2) Mr. M's neighbor is stalking him, his wife, and daughter. Why? We don't know.
3) The majority of the book tells the true story of the teacher from M's book, Laura - the high school student with whom he had an affair, Herman - Laura's boyfriend, and a number of other teenagers in Laura and Herman's circle of friends.

I actually didn't find any of the 3 story lines interesting. Koch's writing tends toward introspective ruminations, which, in and of themselves, wouldn't be so bad, but they go on and on and on. The plot just moved sooooo slowly because of all these internal conversations.

We figure out fairly early on why Mr. M's neighbor has such an interest in him, but we don't figure out until the very end as to how Mr. M figures into the plot of "Dear Mr. M" at all. While it's an interesting twist, it's not enough to make up for the tedium of the rest of the novel. This book had so much promise; I was sorely disappointed. I don't know if it's because some essence is lost in the translation from Dutch to English, but every Herman Koch book I've read has the same issues - too many internal conversations, a plot that doesn't move enough, and characters who are all very unlikable. I think this will be the last Herman Koch book I read, because I'm tired of being disappointed. show less

Yes, I have certain plans for you, Mr. M. You may think you're alone, but as of today I'm here too. In a certain sense, of course, I've always been here, but now I'm really here. I'm here, and I won't be going away, not for a while yet.

Herman Koch's novel, Dear Mr. M starts out ominous enough with some insight into M's stalker downstairs neighbor. It's clear from the beginning that this neighbor, whose name we later learn is Herman(!), has unresolved issues with the novelist and isn't exactly about to handle them in a healthy way.

I read Koch's novel, The Dinner , a few years ago and found I really enjoyed the psychological build up he creates within his story lines and how multifaceted he makes his characters. Dear Mr. M is no show more exception - it slowly builds in intensity, often leaving the reader in the dark about details until the very end. But more than the plot itself, what I love about Herman Koch's books is his ability to create characters that while often twisted and completely unlikeable, are fascinating to read about - even when the reader may find him/herself wondering if people could truly be that despicable.

Dear Mr. M alternates narratives, mainly between M and Herman, but there are several chapters interjected that feature M's wife, Herman's teenage girlfriend, and the (missing? murdered?) teacher, Jan Landzaat. Through these different points of view, the reader is slowly exposed to a story line that explains the truth behind M's bestselling novel, Payback - a book based on real events.

While overall I enjoyed the changes in point of view, there were times when it felt a bit sloppy and unnecessary. Several of the chapters shared a lot of information that I personally felt strayed away from the plot, particularly those that focused on Herman's adolescence. While still interesting to read, they made the mystery of what happened to Jan Landzaat seem a bit disjointed. What had hooked me in the beginning ultimately got muddied by the end of the book.

Despite these issues, I still enjoyed the novel as a whole. Dear Mr. M may not have held the intensity for me that The Dinner had, but I still found myself absorbed enough to want to see how events would unfold and luckily, I wasn't disappointed in the finale.

Thank you, Netgalley and Hogarth, for giving me the chance to read Herman Koch's newest novel before its publication date! show less

This is a mystery novel told in an unusual fashion, so I wanted to like it. I wanted it to suck me into the tale. But the frequency of casual misogyny in this novel -- unremarked on, not as a characterization strategy, just periodic casual reminders that women are less-than and meant mostly as eye candy -- made any enjoyment impossible. Not recommended. Also, sigh.