Stammered Songbook: A Mother's Book of Hours

Written from the point of view of a ten-year-old boy who lives with his grandmother, is a striking debut novel describing the vivid history of a family in a Flemish village. The mysterious death of Marcel, the family favourite, has always haunted the young boy. With the help of his schoolteacher, he starts to discover the secrets of Marcel’s ‘black’ past. The story of his death on the Eastern Front for the sake of Flanders, and the shame this brought upon his family gradually become clear. Erwin Mortier unravels this shameful family past in an unusually sensitive and evocative manner.

A wonderful, balanced novel about how the remains of the past reverberate in the present, sensitively and delicately describes the powerful emotions which lie just beneath the surface of the unruffled sheen of village life. Joris’ father died young, and his mother moved to Spain, so he has lived with his aunt and uncle since early childhood. He is quiet and introverted, and his aunt and uncle fear that he harbours a deep resentment for the loss of his parents. The gentle pace of life in the village is suddenly disturbed when a decision is made to remove the cemetery in the centre. For the boy, this awakens various emotionally charged memories of his dead father. The books ends with the death of the boy’s foster parents, marking a definitive end to his youth.