Iain Reid

Ein philosophischer Thriller, der all unsere Gewissheiten zum Wanken bringt - vom jungen kanadischen Bestseller-Autor Iain Reid (»The Ending«).

Ein Besucher ist etwas höchst Ungewöhnliches auf der Farm von Junior und Henrietta, die sich irgendwo in der kanadischen Einsamkeit zwischen riesige Rapsfelder duckt. Und der seltsame Gast aus der Stadt bringt verstörende Nachrichten: Junior wurde für ein Forschungsprogramm ausgewählt und soll die nächste Zeit weit weg von seiner Farm verbringen … sehr weit weg. So soll sein langweiliges Leben revolutioniert, seine persönliche Entwicklung vorangetrieben werden.

Und Henrietta, seine geliebte Frau?

Keine Angst. Für sie wird gesorgt - sie wird seine Abwesenheit noch nicht einmal bemerken ...

Mit sparsamen Mitteln erzeugt Iain Reid raffinierteste Spannung und schwer fassbaren Schrecken und wirft die großen Fragen auf - nach unserem Zusammenleben, dem freien Willen und dem Menschsein selbst.

Psychothriller

Enemy

plantdad

The privilege of being human is that our brains are big enough to decide the fate of other creatures.

sybil

Tina ok

Walking is nonverbal communication. Like I can tell if [she's] mad by her footsteps. Walking isn't as overt as other signals, like the way someone smells, their voice, their laugh, their facial expressions. Steps can be frivolous, but they're often distinct from person to person. Familiarity grows over time, slowly, inadvertently. I never tried to get to know her walk deliberately. This stuff happens unwittingly... Living with someone can't be simulated or rehearsed. It has to be experienced, in real time. There is no substitute for shared involvement, for creating actual memories. Like, I know how [she] blows her nose. I've never thought about it until now, but I do. I know the cadence, the rhythm. She does it in the same tempo every time. These observations - her footsteps, how she blows her nose - they're like little secrets.

isn’t it good to scare yourself from time to time? It’s so easy to get stuck in your own narrow rut. We convince ourselves they’re paths to something else, contentment, but really they’re just ruts going on forever.

That’s what time does. It ushers a return to equilibrium. Unease becomes ease. A shock, no matter how potent, always wears off with time.

Are some things meant to be, meant to happen? There are some things we can’t explain. Some call it fate. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t have to know more than that. Maybe the orbit we inhabit is preordained. I’m okay with it even if I don’t really believe in that kind of thing. You can hold beliefs and not always believe in them.

How many people live day to day in a kind of haze, moving from one thing to the next without ever feeling anything? Being busy without ever being absorbed or excited or renewed?

Habitual, comfortable activity is the worst kind of prison, because the bars are concealed.

My youth was unremarkable, unmemorable. We all occupy a social district, and I had my place: middling, undistinguished, irrelevant. I was the physical embodiment of the numerical mean.

Despair is never satisfied on its own. Despair does not want to be alone. Despair wants company.

The thought of ever going somewhere new is scary, but isn’t it good to scare yourself from time to time? It’s so easy to get stuck in your own narrow rut. We convince ourselves they’re paths to something else, contentment, but really they’re just ruts going on forever.

Enemy quotes

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