Franka and Phinus have the perfect marriage - until one senseless act loses them their only child, the perfect teenager Jem. They lose too their ability to talk to each other, Franka loses her power to sleep, and Phinus loses his gentleness, combating his grief and secret guilt with obsessive thoughts of revenge.
A weekend break in the country, planned to bring the estranged couple back together, shows that what's done cannot easily be undone. It erupts into a bizarre, often dryly hilarious yet violent confrontation, which serves only to underline their despair.
This heartbreaking and compelling drama of love and loss, a number one bestseller in Holland, shows that hell is not other people, as is generally supposed: the truth is that nothing is more terrible than what a person can do to himself.
