A mesmerising portrait of an unravelling mind, and an ageing man on his final pilgrimage - to Switzerland - from the Sunday Times- bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest It was sometimes like looking at the kindling for a life, a meticulously laid fire that was cold, unlit. The possibility was there, the elements properly arranged, but he couldn''t remember how to make it. After a lifetime working in corporate finance, David Hastings is flying to Switzerland - or Switzy, as they all call it - in a private plane belonging to a former business associate. His memory has started playing tricks on him, and his assistant is behaving suspiciously. In a small leather-bound notebook, he keeps a record of his itinerary: LONDON, TWO DAYS. THREE DAYS ZURICH, COLD. In London, he will attempt to say goodbye to his daughter, Rebecca, but he barely knows her these days. In Zurich is a car that will take him across the border to visit Tom, an old schoolfriend who won''t return David''s letters but lingers in his thoughts. And, finally, the clinic. Profoundly moving and darkly humorous, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when both the accomplishments - and illusions - that have defined him have vanished.

Autorentext
Emma Cline is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of The Girls, the story collection Daddy and The Guest. Cline's stories have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, the Paris Review and Best American Short Stories. She received the Plimpton Prize from the Paris Review and was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.

Klappentext

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026

'A miracle of a novel' SAMANTHA HARVEY
'A stunning achivement' JOHANNA THOMAS-CORR, SUNDAY TIMES
'The last pages... will probably stay with me for ever' CHRIS POWER, GUARDIAN
'Immersive, elegiac and very real' BOOKER PRIZE 2026 JUDGES
'Sublime... completely gripping... a wonder' MARK HADDON
'Her best book yet. Completely extraordinary' DAISY JOHNSON

**A mesmerising portrait of an ageing man's last pilgrimage and his fading mind, from the bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest **

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. In his pocket is a notebook filled with urgent reminders - but he can no longer read his own handwriting.

He's travelling with his assistant. There will be a stopover in London, dinner with his adult daughter, a meeting in France with an old friend. His final destination: a clinic in Zurich.

As David glides through hotel rooms, airports and foreign cities, his grasp on the present slips away and the past rushes in.

With David's arrival in Zurich looming, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unravelling mind emerges. Hypnotic and moving, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK 2026: BBC, Guardian, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, Bookstr, Glossary, Paper Trails