Netherland

How much does public tragedy drive our private lives? Can we redirect our personal trajectories after public events steer us off course? How will our lives be perceived in the space of our generation; or in the space of two, three or four generations? What does it mean to be an American (Ich bin ein American?)? How do we chose our friendships? These are some of the questions Joseph O'Neill asks in his beautifully and thoughtfully written Netherland.

Hans, a Dutch native, his English wife and their young son relocate to New York for work prior to 9/11. They live downtown and are moved to the Chelsea Hotel after their building is contaminated. Rachel becomes more and more agitated and anxious after the attacks, and decides to move with their son back to London. Faced with the unexpected, Hans flounders. He lives in a bohemian hotel with transient to non-existent friends, a job in which he's successful and makes a good living, but without friends and family doesn't translate into happiness. But as friendships often happen, he randomly meets Chuck Ramkissoon and soon strikes up a friendship of convenience with him, and others who meet to play cricket throughout the outer boroughs.

For Hans, cricket is a transport back in time to his childhood in the Hague. Throughout the book Hans enjoys the anonymity his ragtag group of immigrant friends provide. He doesn't question their motives and they don't question his. Maybe for all of them it is a way to connect in vast America, and they do. To connect with his son, Hans frequently logs into Google Earth and swoops from lower Manhattan to London, getting down close enough to see his wife's car and son's bike in the lawn. We are, and as Hans intimately knows, in a very small world, but also one that is still so immense.

O'Neill deftly navigates the reader through real events in the years following 9/11 (ie, the blackout of '93) and challenges us to wonder whether public events really do affect our current and future relationships. He writes about the mundane and the profound in the same tone, giving us a guide, Hans, who is equally confused and assured about his own decisions.

Netherland isn't a page turner, but it is captivating. I give it 5/5 netflix stars.