David Vann (1966, Alaska) made a big impression on the audience at Crossing Border last year with Legend of a Suicide, so we are very glad to welcome him back with his first novel Caribou Island.   

The author
David Vann (1966) grew up in Alaska en is now living in San Francisco. In Legend of a Suicide Vann tries to make sense of his father’s suicide. After a writing period of ten years, it took him another twelve years to find a publisher. But not without success, his fiction debut proved to be a prizewinner and was even heralded by some as the best book to have been published in the last five years. Now David Vann is back with his first novel Caribou Island, which stays close to the themes, feeling and characters of his last book. 

The Book
On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, Gary and Irene are building the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place. Gary, driven by thirty years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. When winter comes early, the overwhelming isolation of the prehistoric wilderness threatens their bond to the core. Caught in the emotional maelstrom is their adult daughter, Rhoda, who is wrestling with the hopes and disappointments of her own life whilst her husband Jim sleeps around constantly. Devoted to her parents, Rhoda watches helplessly as they drift further apart.  

Interviewer
David Vann will be interview by Wim Brands (VPRO)

!Location: Weimarstraat 36, The Hague
Start: 20.00 hrs (doors open: 19.30 hrs) 
For information on tickets (€ 5,00), click here

The press
‘A portrait of desolation, violence, and the darkness of the soul, it is an explosive and unforgettable novel from a writer of limitless possibility.’- Goodreads

'Vann handles the tricky transition from story to novel with aplomb: the dramatic, shifting landscape; the sharp insight into an unravelling mind; the myth of masculinity; love's messy cross-currents - everything that made Legend so absorbing, and rightly acclaimed, is here deepened and strengthened’ – The Times