A Heart of Stone

A Heart of Stone is the first novel by best-selling Dutch author, Renate Dorrestein, to appear in English (admirably translated by Hester Velmans). It's an extraordinary, and compelling, story of family and violence, childhood and madness--a story whose deft changes of perspective support the suspense that runs right through to the novel's conclusion. From the narrator, Ellen, the third of five children, we know that something has gone terribly wrong for the Van Bemmel family. What, why, and how is only gradually discovered through Dorrestein's powerful exploration of a family apparently doomed to destruction. In her late thirties, Ellen's own pregnancy is the catalyst for her journey of remembrance, her recovery of her parents' wish to give their children "a blessedly happy and carefree childhood" and the perversity that can accompany a mother's faith in the fact that she knows what is best for her children. A story of memory, mourning and rebirth, A Heart of Stone keys in to some of the most painful themes in contemporary fiction. Far from incidental, or gratuitous, that pain is integrated into Dorrestein's exploration of how a fiction might respond to a child's question--"What happens to dead people?"--posed in the most extreme circumstances. "The police discovered Carlos and me huddled in the darkest corner of Billie's old cellar, sobbing with fright"': one of the first indications of what has happened appears early in this novel that, like its narrator, swerves away from finding, and telling, more--at least until the very end of the book when, with tact and care, Dorrestein forces her character (and readers) up against what she has tried so hard not to know.