‘Switzy’: In her new novel Emma Cline inhabits a man with dementia

Emma Cline is best known as the author of novels about troubled young women. The Girls, her debut, inhabited a follower of a Charles Manson figure, who opted out of the murders at the last minute. Her second, The Guest, followed a callow beauty who’d attached herself to a wealthy man for accommodation.

Switzy, her third novel, longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, turns to a different kind of protagonist. The novel follows an elderly American man making a final journey to Switzerland. The way to Golgotha? A last hurrah? Readers can quickly guess Switzerland is the place where David Hastings, our narrator, plans to end his life before his accelerating Alzheimer’s disease robs him of total agency.

Rather than scrutinising the ethics of such a decision, Cline focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, how we construct our own version of events, and what happens when our ability to control that narrative begins to slip away.

David is not an immediately sympathetic guide. He is often curt, entitled and rude, particularly towards his assistant, Cody (who is not altogether warm). What makes David compelling is his limited awareness of these shortcomings. Cline repeatedly depicts David recognising his own irritability even as he succumbs to...

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