The Blessed Rita

Nearly fifty, single and taciturn, Paul Krüzen lives with his invalid father in a dilapidated farmhouse just outside a fading village close to Germany, dealing in army surplus over the internet. Decades ago, during the Cold War, a Soviet defector flying a crop duster came down in the cornfield out back, and Paul's mother left with the Russian. Newcomers have kept arriving since: a Chinese family running the café and chip shop, then Poles, Bulgarians and Romanians. Paul goes over the border to visit prostitutes, and trouble there drags him out of the shelter he has made of his life.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

285 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Migration (assigned by AI)

Set in

Netherlands

First published

2017 by De Bezige Bij

Author's age

50 when first published

ISBN

9789023458753 (original)

9781911344902 (Scribe, United Kingdom)

9781925713268 (Scribe, Australia)

More

Wikidata