Publisher's Synopsis
"A beautifully realized novel, Adrian van Dis has a wholly original sensibilty" NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW Born in Holland shortly after the war, a young boy grows up an outsider in the midst of his family. Living in isolation on Holland's North Sea coast, he looks on as his mixed-race half-sisters are mocked for their 'blue skin', endures a brutal military training at his father's hands, and wonders about the wartime hardships his family suffered at the hands of the Japanese. Years later, the middle-aged son begins a quest into his family's past in Indonesia. Despite his sisters' denial and his mother's evasiveness, he learns of the incredible endurance of his father, one of the few survivors of Japanese wartime torture, and begins finally to understand his family and their history.
