Synopses & Reviews
PETER BUWALDA worked as a journalist and editor before founding a music magazine and writing a weekly column for a major Dutch newspaper. He lives in the Netherlands with his family.
About the Author
"Dazzling...Critics hailed Buwalda as 'The Dutch answer to Jonathan Franzen', but his brilliance is entirely unique."--The Times (UK) Siem Sigerius is a beloved professor of mathematics with a bright future in politics. His beautiful family - step-daughters Joni and Janis, loving wife Tineke - and his carefully appointed home in the bucolic countryside of the Netherlands complete the portrait of a comfortable and morally upright liberal family. Joni's new boyfriend Aaron is star struck when he is first introduced to his hopeful future in-laws, but he is soon welcomed into the family as one of their own.
But there are elements of Siem's past - including a son from a previous marriage with a dangerously violent history - that threaten to upset the perfect balance of success and happiness that the family as achieved. And Siem's own weaknesses lead him to make a discovery that reveals deception even closer to home than he realized. When a shocking explosion at a local factory coincides with Siem's son's reappearance, the Sigerius family begins to fracture, rapidly, and perhaps irrevocably.
A riveting portrait of a family in crisis, Bonita Avenue delves into questions of culture, class, family relationships, and the ways that unexpected coincidence and twists of fate can change our lives forever.