cover image UNKNOWN DESTINATION

UNKNOWN DESTINATION

Maya Rasker, , trans. from the Dutch by Barbara Fasting. . Ballantine, $23.95 (224pp) ISBN 978-0-345-44676-3

Rasker's thoroughly glum novel, winner of Holland's Golden Dog-Ear Award, is a psychological study of love and obsession—with others and with one's self. Gideon Salomon, a photographer, is mourning the loss of his beautiful wife, Raya Mira, who disappeared on their dead daughter Lizzy's sixth birthday: she went to her favorite bar, had a whiskey and apparently walked away forever. Gideon recounts the story of their meeting, their marriage and the birth of Lizzy, as well as his inability to understand his wife's metaphysical leanings. Raya Mira is a poet and writer who occasionally takes to the sea with fishermen to absorb experiences, returning to write "magnificent short stories for obscure literary journals." It is during one of these expeditions that five-year-old Lizzy, left behind with Gideon, falls through thin ice and goes into a coma. Raya Mira returns and resumes her role as mother, wrestling to resolve the conflict between her identity as a mother and an artist, and wondering which should take precedence: "Will there never again be a day when I coincide with myself, with no one else in between?" Dysfunctional family neuroses run rampant in this low-key exploration of obsession: Gideon's mother killed herself after suffering through a loveless marriage, and Raya Mira's mother was coldly dissociated from her daughter. Gideon's and Raya Mira's dour self-absorption makes them thoroughly unbearable; Lizzy is the sole appealing character and the ugly surprise ending is only moving because of that appeal. (Feb.)