Review of Switzy by Emma Cline

Cline crafts a poignant, darkly funny, and uncomfortably, beautifully spot-on-feeling novel about a man with dementia as the clock runs out. He increasingly loses his grasp on the facts but urgently reconnects with pivotal figures from his past and considers his rapidly unraveling, impenetrable reality while revealing to the reader powerful, universal truths.

Leave the party right when you think, I'm having such a nice time at this party.

David is on a private plane headed for Switzerland. His assistant Cody has all of the details in hand for the retired executive who is traveling to his final stop.

David's perspective makes clear that he is having trouble tracking details, recalling past events, and piecing together the entirety of his situation, and that he is headed to Switzerland with a plan to die before he is unable to make that decision due to dementia.

And here, in this shoulder season of life, they all told you to focus on the present moment. He could hardly do otherwise. They should have taught you this skill earlier--instead they'd sprung it on you, a jarring correction to the original mandate.

What will it be like when you're gone? It will be pretty much the same as before you got here.

He develops methods to cope with his lapses in memory, inability to recall logistics, and suspicions of secrets being kept from him. He seeks familiar signposts, indicators of his past and present, but often finds himself in unknown territory without knowledge of how he got there and why. He regrets having centered his life and identity so solely around work, and he attempts to reconcile with a childhood friend, reconnect with his daughter, and forge human connections before the end of his life.

The poignant premise is also darkly funny at times, often absurd, and frequently breathtakingly, messily unfiltered, alternating between rude, sly, touching, heartbreaking, and silly.

...people didn't often torture themselves over their mistakes, didn't throw themselves in front of trains out of moral shame.... it was more about not wanting to be uncomfortable in the world.

I'm fascinated by books that explore mortality--see the link below for more Bossy reads in this vein--and I found Switzy powerful and irresistible.

I received a prepublication audio version of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Random House. I also received a copy of this book through my monthly Books Are Magic subscription.

More Books to Explore

Emma Cline is also the author of The Girls (a book I rated with four Bossy stars when I read it ten years ago, before this blog existed) and The Guest.

You might also want to check out these Bossy reads that center around mortality.