NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

Breakwater is a novel about a woman who keeps a big secret. Emilia Roovers, in her forties, seemingly has a stable marriage and a happy family life with her husband Bruch and their two sons. But Emilia’s big secret is a trauma from a violent rape in the past, long before her marriage. At the beginning of her marriage, Emilia keeps this trauma hidden from her husband. She does not want to be ruled by it. She wants to be autonomous and does not want her whole life and marriage to be determined by the past. With her husband and children, she moves from Amsterdam to the countryside, longing for more peace and stability. But the new large house is located in an area outside the dikes near a river. The desired stability in Emilia’s life is ultimately heavily threatened by a storm that floods the house. Against the background of this emerging storm, Emilia’s relationship with her past also bursts open. Through a series of significant events, this past comes to the fore and Emilia must come to terms with it. Thus, this book develops into a philosophical novel that deals with essential questions such as: should you always tell the truth? What is trust? What is intimacy? What is transparency? What is reality and what is perception? What is an exception and what is the norm? Are you the owner of your own past? How does the past determine the present? How does trauma determine a human being? Marijke Schermer carefully doses these questions, giving away only what is necessary, and as a reader you get closer and closer to Emilia’s thinking about herself, the people around her and her dilemmas. The reader is thus swept along in an increasingly intense story that gets under your skin.