Roxy

Roxy's life is turned upside down when her husband is killed in a car crash, his naked body found entangled with his lover's. Twenty-seven-year-old Roxy is left behind with their daughter, her husband's personal assistant, and their babysitter to come to terms with this shameful end to her marriage. Looking to break free from her grief, Roxy takes the three of them on an impromptu road trip filled with darkly humorous observations about loss, parental responsibility, and the expiration date of love. Through masterful dialogues and in her trademark lucid style, Gerritsen introduces the reader to a woman whose response to grief both shocks and endears. 'Roxy is a splendid little book about a fascinating yet troubling protagonist, with Gerritsen's stripped-back language providing a very readable and direct narrative.' — European Literature Network 'A raw, unsettling book.' — Daily Mail 'A novel you devour in one sitting: elegiac, beautiful, and very strong.' — Herman Koch, author of The Dinner 'Some sentences in Roxy are as if carved in stone; like Samuel Beckett, Gerritsen knows how to capture moments of terrifying precision and darkness.' — De Morgen 'In her fifth book Esther Gerritsen has continued to grow to the level of an author who dares to incorporate everything—from comical cross-talk to heart-rending silence. Once again, she displays her gift for striking sentences and dialogue that teeters on the thin line between normality and alienation, between entertaining kookiness and harrowing absurdism.' — De Volkskrant 'Even more than we have grown used to, in Roxy Gerritsen strips her scenes and language to the bone, leaving us with the core, which is ridiculously good.'  — Opzij Literature Prize