
The Twin
When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to return to the small family farm. He resigns himself to taking over his brother's role and spending the rest of his days 'with his head under a cow'. After his old, worn-out father has been transferred upstairs, Helmer sets about furnishing the rest of the house according to his own minimal preferences. 'A double bed and a duvet', advises Ada, who lives next door, with a sly look. Then Riet appears, the woman once engaged to marry his twin. Could Riet and her son live with him for a while, on the farm? 'The Twin' is an ode to the platteland, the flat and bleak Dutch countryside with its ditches and its cows and its endless grey skies. Ostensibly a novel about the countryside, as seen through the eyes of a farmer, 'the Twin' is, in the end, about the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one's own hands. It chronicles a way of life which has resisted modernity, is culturally apart, and yet riven with a kind of romantic longing.
Buy this book at Amazon- Publisher
- ReadHowYouWant.com
- Year
- 2010
- ISBN-13
- 9781459608276
- Genre
- Fiction
- Topics
- Grief and lossRural life and family dutyIdentity and self-determination
Awards
- International Dublin Literary AwardWonMajor(2010)
Other awarded books from Gerbrand Bakker
If you liked The Twin, you could also like these

The Detour
Gerbrand Bakker
0 wins · 4 score

What I’d Rather Not Think About
Jente Posthuma
0 wins · 4 score

A Tiler's Afternoon
Lars Gustafsson
0 wins · 4 score

Summer Brother
Jaap Robben
0 wins · 2 score

The Dutch House
Ann Patchett
0 wins · 4 score

The Discomfort of Evening
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld
1 win · 12 score

The Short Day Dying
Peter Hobbs
0 wins · 4 score

The Following Story
Cees Nooteboom
0 wins · 4 score

Unsettled Ground
Claire Fuller
0 wins · 4 score

The Half Brother
Lars Saabye Christensen
0 wins · 4 score

On the Black Hill
Bruce Chatwin
1 win · 12 score

The Land in Winter
Andrew Miller
0 wins · 4 score

Universal Harvester
John Darnielle
0 wins · 2 score

The Other Name: Septology I – II
Jon Fosse
0 wins · 2 score

War and Turpentine
Stefan Hertmans
0 wins · 2 score
Similar Topics

American Gods
Neil Gaiman
4 wins · 39 score
Grief and loss
The Goldfinch
Donna Tartt
2 wins · 32 score
Grief and loss
Among Others
Jo Walton
3 wins · 28 score
Grief and loss
Family Life
Akhil Sharma
2 wins · 24 score
Grief and loss
Hamnet
Maggie O'Farrell
2 wins · 24 score
Grief and loss
Let the Great World Spin
Colum McCann
2 wins · 24 score
Grief and loss
Children of Blood and Bone
Tomi Adeyemi
3 wins · 21 score
Grief and loss
How to Be Both
Ali Smith
1 win · 20 score
Grief and loss
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
1 win · 20 score
Grief and loss
The Devil Takes You Home
Gabino Iglesias
2 wins · 18 score
Grief and loss
Sabbath's Theater
Philip Roth
1 win · 16 score
Grief and loss
The Friend
Sigrid Nunez
1 win · 16 score
Grief and loss
The Last Child
John Hart
2 wins · 16 score
Grief and loss
Bag of Bones
Stephen King
2 wins · 13 score
Grief and loss
The Extremes
Christopher Priest
1 win · 13 score
Grief and loss