Tim Krabbe is the author of The Vanishing, the translated name for his novel The Golden Egg. This was made into the devastating 1988 Dutch film The Vanishing which was such an international success, the same director remade it for Hollywood starring Keifer Sutherland. You would never forget this film precisely for the ending - and Hollywood changed it!
defeating the whole point of the story.
Such a travesty, I have to mention it - there is no way on earth you would change that ending.
In Delay, Jacques Bekker is given a four hour layover in Sydney, flying home to Amsterdam from New Zealand. Leaving his fellow passengers to sightsee, he promises to be back for the flight.
Monique lives here, a first-love he met in Ostend thirty years ago when he was 17 and she was 20. On a whim, he tracks down her home and finds her loading armfuls of clothes into her red Ford Falcon. Before he knows it, they are travelling into the countryside.
She has had a busy life - an Olympic diver, swimwear manufacturer, TV personality, and talk show host - she is a national celebrity. That is why she is also front page news.
Her accountant is going to talk. Her business has collapsed, she has absconded with 68 million dollars, and 400 people are out of work. She is facing three years in prison.
Over the next few days they evade police and press, incognito in disguises with fake IDs. Blindly driving into the outback they deal with flat tires and hunger, until the car slowly sinks into the saline crust of a dried lake.
This is not the end, just another instance along the road of dark obsession.
Delay is easily read in one sitting, which adds to the momentum, propelling the plot along, deeper into the unknown. What will become of them? Where is the money?
How do you return to normal?
The Guardian quotes: "Taut, sparse prose that makes panic thicken the throat."
Exactly. This is a travelogue that leaves reality behind, you just have to go with it.
Very entertaining.
1994 / Tradeback / 175 pages
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