The Perfect Place

by Sheila Kohler

"A wholly entrancing narrative….Kohler has a fine ear for truth and untruth and the musical possibilities of their interplay."—J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace

At a hotel in Switzerland, a mysterious and elegant woman is recovering from an unspecified illness. One day, a man approaches her on the terrace. "You were a friend of Daisy Summers," he says. With that simple statement begins the unraveling of a decades-old mystery and a journey into a mind as fascinatingly intelligent and amoral as readers have seen since Patricia Highsmith unleashed The Talented Mr. Ripley.

Other Press is proud to reissue Sheila Kohler's stunning debut novel. In the fifteen years since first publication of The Perfect Place , Kohler has staked her own terrain in a series of unique and seductive novels and short stories that have been internationally acclaimed.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 11, 1989

About the author

Sheila Kohler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, the younger of two girls. Upon matriculation at 17 from Saint Andrews, with a distinction in history (1958), she left the country for Europe. She lived for 15 years in Paris, where she married, did her undergraduate degree in literature at the Sorbonne, and a graduate degree in psychology at the Institut Catholique. After raising her three girls, she moved to the USA in 1981, and did an MFA in writing at Columbia.

In the summer of 1987, her first published story, “The Mountain,” came out in “The Quarterly” and received an O’Henry prize and was published in the O’Henry Prize Stories of 1988. It also became the first chapter in her first novel, "The Perfect Place," which was published by Knopf the next year.

Reviews

[Li · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I liked this book, but then again...I can't even remember if I finished it or not. I remember the beginning...fondly.

[J. Elliott · Rating 3 out of 5]

A strange, hypnotic visit into a woman's psyche. This is a short mystery of 148 pages. There's not a whole lot of plot and few characters, but we learn that the narrator first doesn't claim to have known, then may have briefly known, murder victim Daisy Summers. The narrator seems to have better recall of things from the past like wallpaper patterns, weather, odd sounds, and what variety of flowers were blooming on her veranda than on recalling people or specifics of conversations.
Picked this up at a Friends of the Library sale.
Quick and peculiar read. Kind of like tasting a new cocktail with a mystery ingredient, I felt I had to keep sipping, keep sipping. Do I like this? Keep sipping. Strange. I think I do. Sip...
Glad it was short. Glad for the experience. Still don't know what that was exactly.

[Brett Warnke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive first novel—disjointed, slippery, unreliable, eerie as it sounds: a murder, two women, so many evasions and lies, and the cold Swiss lake always in the background. Strange symbols throughout—poisonous flowers, rain, sharks. Worth its weirdness. I just finished and want to reread, though, maybe not every word.

[Nisareen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bizarre, disturbing and at times macabre book about a solitary nameless woman of a certain age tracking down a repressed memory. As the book unfolds we follow her journey as she finally remembers the crime she committed against a schoolmate, which now haunts her until she can face its memory.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high expectations for this book... "Cracks" by Kohler is one of my favorites. This started well- a very creepy unreliable narrator, but by mid book I had to abandon it- extremely repetitive, and I lost any interest in what would happen to her. Disappointed.

[Cordel Durrant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing language creates a chilling atmosphere in this book. Don't ask about it; read the first page, and you will be hooked for the duration of the book.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

The harm has already happened; the novel explores how people coexist with it. The unease comes from how survivable damage turns out to be — which is its own kind of horror.