Small World [Paperback]

Martin Suter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 24, 2003

At first they thought Konrad’s absentmindedness was due to his drinking. For years, he had been a benign parasite on the Koch family. But when their villa burns down because of Konrad’s forgetfulness, Elvira Senn, matriarch of the Koch family, puts him on a strict regime. No longer allowed his daily tipple, Konrad recovers and even falls in love. But then his condition deteriorates, and Alzheimer’s takes hold. As he loses his present, he regains his distant past, and this is what Elvira fears the most. As they wait for him to rewind to the crucial moment, his life is in danger from far more than a debilitating disease.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A brilliant talent!" --Reinhardt Stumm, Baseler Zeitung
-- Review --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

Translated from the German by Sandra Harper.

The moving story of a man drawn back into his past by an illness that robs him of his grasp of the present.

Konrad Lang, a man in his sixties, is haunted by images of his early childhood, and he cannot remember his immediate past. Memory tugs him back to the villa of his adoptive "family," the Kochs. Konrad grew up with Thomas Koch, rich and spoiled heir to the family's fortune. Konrad was Thomas's playmate and in due course became the family's whipping-boy and now the Kochs don't want to know -- except for Elvira Senn, the all-powerful matriarch, who has reason to be worried by Konrad's lucid spells, and then Simone, the newcomer to the family, who takes pity on Konrad and threatens to uncover secrets the family would like to see hidden forever.

Martin Suter was born in Zürich in 1948 and now lives in Spain and Guatemala. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House UK (July 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0099449129
• ISBN-13: 978-0099449126
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.6 x 7.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #331,115 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An international best-seller.., July 16, 2003

By 

Ann Cameron (Panajachel, Guatemala) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Small World (Hardcover)

SMALL WORLD is Martin Suter's first novel, an international best-seller just recently published in the U.S. With it and his succeeding novels not yet out in English, THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, and A PERECT FRIEND, Suter has carved out almost a new genre--the psychological thriller--in which a net of corporate intrigue parallels the inner labyrinth of the central character's mind. In SMALL WORLD, the mind is that of a man whose deteroriation due to Alzheimer's brings him closer and closer to early memories that endanger a wealthy and powerful Swiss industrialist--a woman hiding her own past. In DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, the mind at risk is that of a propserous but angry middle-aged lawyer whose specialty is corporate mergers: his personal merger with some magic mushrooms ingested in a Swiss forest bring the anger to the fore and bring him into a deadly game of hunter and hunted in the forest. In A PERFECT FRIEND, the hero lost in a labyrinth is a journalist who wakes up amnesiac in a hospital bed after being hit over the head with a blunt object. He fears he's been assaulted because of a story he was covering--but what the story was and what he'd been doing in the days leading up to the attack, he can't remember. Picking up the lost theads of his life leads him closer and closer to ruthless attackers and truths about himself he won't want to face. Suter's psychological and social explorations are always convincing and precise; his books are page-turners, electric with tension from the first page, surprising to the last and yet always believable. There's no naiveté in his depiction of corporate scams and personal cupidity--yet in his novels even the good guys have faults, and even the bad guys have a certain malign beauty. There's mercy, sweetness and humor in Suter's treatment of his characters that's unique to his writing. He's a novelist to follow, and one hopes that all his novels out and those to come will be published in English.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touchy, fascinating, loaded with emotions, thrilling, March 15, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Small World (Hardcover)

This is a very fascinating, touchy, and partially also thrilling story about Konrad Lang, a man who develops Alzheimer's disease. The account tells stories that move from gradually increasing stages of the disease.
I could imagine that it might be a bit hard to stand for someone being personally affected by Alzheimer's in the direct environment, but it might as well help to see Konrad and his environment struggling with the disease and its effects on everyone.
It is a fascinating story until the very end that makes it difficult to interrupt reading once you started. The end comes as a surprise.