Alfred Birney is a Dutch author whose work delves into themes of estrangement from family, the ongoing unraveling of mysteries, and the struggle for identification with one's homeland. His literary style is associative, evocative, and dreamlike in his fiction, yet sharpens to become hilarious, sarcastic, and ironic in his essays and criticism. Birney masterfully blends these distinct approaches, creating a unique narrative voice that explores complex familial and national identities.
Alan Noland discovers his father's memoirs about the atrocities he committed in the Dutch East Indies during the war with Japan - and Alan begins to understand how war transformed his father into the monster he knew.