Little Caesar Bride

Dutch writer Wieringa (Joe Speedboat) is acclaimed for his coming-of-age stories, and he has produced another accomplished one here—a potent, emotionally moving, beautifully realized novel about a young man seeking to understand his difficult, eccentric parents. Ludwig, Wieringa's young protagonist, has been abandoned by his heartless father; the cruelty of this betrayal, as well as his parents' acrimonious divorce, has incapacitated him. His father is a brute, a sensationalistic conceptual artist whose most recent project, the destruction of a mountain deep in the Amazon rain forest, has provoked worldwide protest. His mother is a former adult film star. The novel builds powerfully as Ludwig works his way through youthful confusion and anger to a mature and chastened understanding of his parents.