Overstaying

July 15, 2024
In Swiss writer Koch’s bewitching debut, a woman’s isolated existence is upended by the arrival of a strange being. The unnamed narrator lives alone in the small mountain village where she grew up. One fateful day, she locks eyes with “the visitor” on a train platform. The newcomer is only glancingly described: he has claws, wears a poncho, and his hair juts out “in hedgehog fashion.” She invites him home, and for a while, the two fall into a comfortable domestic rhythm despite not speaking the same language (“One thing I liked about the visitor was that I never knew if he could actually understand me”). Eventually, however, the narrator wonders whether the visitor will ever leave, and questions whether she truly accepts his presence. Told in swirling, disorienting fragments, the narration is sometimes funny (“I’ve never said I’m proud of how wicked I am. And yet I must admit I’ve come to terms with it relatively quickly”), sometimes lightly ominous (“During the night, once the visitor falls into his nightmarish sleep, I will measure the width of his bite”), and consistently sharp. Fans of dreamy and mysterious fiction like Claire-Louise Bennett’s Pond will devour this.

Starred review from August 1, 2024
A woman adrift finds her life upended by a traveling stranger. The nameless protagonist in Swiss playwright and artist Koch's debut novel has "come to rest" in her parents' house in her small hometown, her parents having moved away. A self-described "tomb-keeper," the protagonist lives among the detritus of her childhood home and memories associated with it. She feels deeply disconnected from her hometown and its inhabitants but is unwilling to leave. The novel opens with her noticing "the visitor," who seems to have "materialized from the void," at the local bar. Though she keeps her distance from other townspeople, she is drawn to the stranger and invites him to live with her. Immediately, their relationship is all extremes; the house holds them together as their odd behaviors force them apart. Seemingly, the longer the visitor stays, the more deranged the protagonist becomes. When the down-on-his-luck visitor begins to shed his sadness and flourish, the protagonist realizes she cannot control him or herself anymore: "The visitor has nested in me to such an extent that no matter how hard I try to rebel against him I am in the end only destroying myself." The plot, if you can call it that, must be excavated from beneath the protagonist's thoughts, feelings, and memories. Realism gives way to exaggeration that melts into the absurd. Disparate vignettes offer jarring glimpses into the protagonist's psyche, including her increasingly strange and complicated dynamic with the visitor--as well as her distant relationship with her parents and siblings. It can be easy to miss the moments of humor and beauty that litter Koch's novel while navigating the meandering and peculiar prose. One such moment is when the protagonist approaches the visitor for the first time: "It's too bad that we always miss the beginnings of things, while the ends of said things always hammer into our bodies." The novel's ending offers a new beginning for the protagonist, which she thankfully does not miss this time around. Layered, experimental, and fragmented, this novel embraces the strangeness both in and around us.

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