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Switzy
A mesmerizing portrait of an aging man’s last pilgrimage, from the New York Times best selling author of The Girls and The Guest.
A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.
A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.
This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.
His final destination is Zurich.
David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.
As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.
A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.
A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.
This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.
His final destination is Zurich.
David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.
As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published September 8, 2026
About the author
Emma Cline
18 books4,983 followersEmma Cline is an American writer and novelist, originally from California. She published her first novel, "The Girls", in 2016, to positive reviews. The book was shortlisted for the John Leonard Award from the National Book Critics Circle and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize.
Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta and The Paris Review.
In 2017 Cline was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.
Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Tin House, Granta and The Paris Review.
In 2017 Cline was named one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.
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Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Now Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026
This is a very, very hard read for anyone really - the protagonist is in that terrifying state of Alzheimer's when the mind registers its own rapid decline, trapping the patient in a position of helplessness, as the disease will at some point inevitably win. This is a destiny that could await any of us, and if you happen to have lived with a friend of family member who suffered an illness related to progressive memory loss (as I did), this novel is all the more devastating - I felt like crying from 10% in to the very end.
Cline's protagonist is David Hastings, a divorced former CFO in his 70's who is travelling to Zurich to end his life in an assisted suicide before his illness deteriorates further. This novel is not here to judge or even discuss the morality or immorality of suicide or organisations that help people with it; rather, it tells the tale of one specific man in mental decline who takes his final trip. We meet David on a private plane to Switzerland with his assistant Cody, so a paid person, not a loved one will be with him when he dies. Before he gets to his last destination, the Swiss clinic, he stops over in London to meet his daughter Rebecca and travels to France to meet a friend from his school days whom he failed in a haunting act of youthful cowardice.
In a way, this novel is very conservatively written, there is no po-mo extravaganza or three-dimensional chess, and while I love whacky stuff like fellow nominee The Vivisectors, this delivers on emotional intensity and creates a shocking understanding of a shattering mind: Failing memories, intruding thoughts and images, grasping at straws, fugue states, being angered by the reflection of oneself seen in others, because they are a testament of one's own loss of control. David was an influential, respected man, now some assistant has to point out his stained clothes and remind him where he is - for a man of his generation, this is even harder to deal with. This feeling is hightened by the effects of the changing world around aging David (which prompted me to wonder how younger generations will feel about this, as the change is ever accelerating). At the same time, while he doesn't utter open regret, readers will ponder how he ended up so lonely, why he failed himself when it comes to love by always remaining emotionally distant.
No, David is not a likeable grandpa figure, he's a very messy old white man who made some bad decisions along the way and failed the ones he should have loved better, but his deep humanity renders this tale heart-wrenching. A very worthy Booker contender that could go far.
This is a very, very hard read for anyone really - the protagonist is in that terrifying state of Alzheimer's when the mind registers its own rapid decline, trapping the patient in a position of helplessness, as the disease will at some point inevitably win. This is a destiny that could await any of us, and if you happen to have lived with a friend of family member who suffered an illness related to progressive memory loss (as I did), this novel is all the more devastating - I felt like crying from 10% in to the very end.
Cline's protagonist is David Hastings, a divorced former CFO in his 70's who is travelling to Zurich to end his life in an assisted suicide before his illness deteriorates further. This novel is not here to judge or even discuss the morality or immorality of suicide or organisations that help people with it; rather, it tells the tale of one specific man in mental decline who takes his final trip. We meet David on a private plane to Switzerland with his assistant Cody, so a paid person, not a loved one will be with him when he dies. Before he gets to his last destination, the Swiss clinic, he stops over in London to meet his daughter Rebecca and travels to France to meet a friend from his school days whom he failed in a haunting act of youthful cowardice.
In a way, this novel is very conservatively written, there is no po-mo extravaganza or three-dimensional chess, and while I love whacky stuff like fellow nominee The Vivisectors, this delivers on emotional intensity and creates a shocking understanding of a shattering mind: Failing memories, intruding thoughts and images, grasping at straws, fugue states, being angered by the reflection of oneself seen in others, because they are a testament of one's own loss of control. David was an influential, respected man, now some assistant has to point out his stained clothes and remind him where he is - for a man of his generation, this is even harder to deal with. This feeling is hightened by the effects of the changing world around aging David (which prompted me to wonder how younger generations will feel about this, as the change is ever accelerating). At the same time, while he doesn't utter open regret, readers will ponder how he ended up so lonely, why he failed himself when it comes to love by always remaining emotionally distant.
No, David is not a likeable grandpa figure, he's a very messy old white man who made some bad decisions along the way and failed the ones he should have loved better, but his deep humanity renders this tale heart-wrenching. A very worthy Booker contender that could go far.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
[3.5 stars] An interesting pivot for Cline. I'll join the chorus of commentary saying that this is unexpected and feels like an intentional departure from her previous titles. With that said, I think Switzy borrows a lot of the successful storytelling techniques from The Guest — the plot once again takes place over a few days, and our protagonist's past is only offered to the reader in fleeting flashbacks.
Cline's stories are fascinating because they don't shy away from the expected; in all three of her novels, the ending is deliberately telegraphed from the beginning. Switzy is perhaps the most telegraphed of the three, yet I found myself unable to put it down. For a 350+ page book, it reads incredibly quickly.
As David grapples with his rapidly progressing Alzheimer's disease, there is a deliberate repetition and blurring of time that places the reader squarely in his perspective. There are reflections on mortality, estrangement, and the fact that we eventually all become strangers to the world we inhabit. I found myself wanting a deeper dissection of the latter theme — David makes several allusions to technology, cultural shifts, and the intangible strangeness that modernity presents — but these allusions are shy.
There's a lot Switzy does right, yet I can't help but feel some degree of disappointment that the premise is not particularly fresh. On a technical level, the prose is excellent, and it avoids the banalities that similar books often delve into (I don't need an asinine lecture on the ethics of medically assisted death). By the conclusion of the novel, David's story still feels half written, which I personally didn't mind, but I would anticipate will leave some readers dissatisfied.
I'm in two minds because I do think that Cline is a writer worthy of plenty of accolades, but I'm not sure if Switzy is her best showing. An enjoyable read (despite my laundry list of complaints, I still think a four-star rating is appropriate), but certainly more commercial than her previous releases. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC.
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Emma Cline returning in 2026… oh it’s gonna be a good year... I rarely read about MEN, but I trust her wholeheartedly xx
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Cline's stories are fascinating because they don't shy away from the expected; in all three of her novels, the ending is deliberately telegraphed from the beginning. Switzy is perhaps the most telegraphed of the three, yet I found myself unable to put it down. For a 350+ page book, it reads incredibly quickly.
As David grapples with his rapidly progressing Alzheimer's disease, there is a deliberate repetition and blurring of time that places the reader squarely in his perspective. There are reflections on mortality, estrangement, and the fact that we eventually all become strangers to the world we inhabit. I found myself wanting a deeper dissection of the latter theme — David makes several allusions to technology, cultural shifts, and the intangible strangeness that modernity presents — but these allusions are shy.
There's a lot Switzy does right, yet I can't help but feel some degree of disappointment that the premise is not particularly fresh. On a technical level, the prose is excellent, and it avoids the banalities that similar books often delve into (I don't need an asinine lecture on the ethics of medically assisted death). By the conclusion of the novel, David's story still feels half written, which I personally didn't mind, but I would anticipate will leave some readers dissatisfied.
I'm in two minds because I do think that Cline is a writer worthy of plenty of accolades, but I'm not sure if Switzy is her best showing. An enjoyable read (despite my laundry list of complaints, I still think a four-star rating is appropriate), but certainly more commercial than her previous releases. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC.
---
Emma Cline returning in 2026… oh it’s gonna be a good year... I rarely read about MEN, but I trust her wholeheartedly xx
Substack | Bookstagram | BookTok | BookTube | Bookshop.org Store | Libro.fm Bonus Offer
August 21, 2026
I wasn’t planning on reading this at first, passing on an invitation to read the ARC . I had recently read a novel with one of the characters suffering with Alzheimer’s and it was heartbreaking. Then I read Debbie’s review and thought I should give it a try. There’s no mistaking that this is a sad story as a man makes his a final journey with no one with him besides an assistant doing his job without any compassion that’s visible.
A man trying to hold on to his present, his life , struggling to come to grips . An imagining of what it must be like to forget, to remember, and forget, to sometimes know what is happening and not be able to control it. At the same time, we get a feeling for what his life was like before, we see a flawed man. A visit with his daughter and an old friend before reaching the final destination of his journey in Zurich felt empty without any reconciliation.
In a stream of consciousness like narration, moving from the present to the past and back to the present, from confusion to moments of clarity and back, with a few moments of levity. Cline’s imagining seems believable . Who knows how real these feelings and observations are? We can only imagine. Kudos to her for causing us to do so.
I received a copy of this from Random House through NetGalley.
A man trying to hold on to his present, his life , struggling to come to grips . An imagining of what it must be like to forget, to remember, and forget, to sometimes know what is happening and not be able to control it. At the same time, we get a feeling for what his life was like before, we see a flawed man. A visit with his daughter and an old friend before reaching the final destination of his journey in Zurich felt empty without any reconciliation.
In a stream of consciousness like narration, moving from the present to the past and back to the present, from confusion to moments of clarity and back, with a few moments of levity. Cline’s imagining seems believable . Who knows how real these feelings and observations are? We can only imagine. Kudos to her for causing us to do so.
I received a copy of this from Random House through NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Pogo stick time!
Ah, finally, a book that sent me bouncing—and blabbing about how good it is! Oh I am so excited! The language is to die for! It opens with a demented man, David, and his assistant, Cody, on a plane to Switzerland.
David is always trying to grasp what is really going on. Often he is clueless or misinterprets what’s happening. And while he’s trying to hold on for dear life, snippets of long-ago memories come into his head. Through these memories, we get a real sense of what his life was like before he started slipping.
Why I loved it:
-Every word is carefully placed. And every word counts; not an extraneous word to be had. I was mesmerized! This writer means business, and she is a master of her craft! In awe, simply in awe.
-The style is sort of stream-of-consciousness and it has this cool rhythm, like jazz. You can always seduce me with language that dances like this. Cha cha cha!
-There’s word play. Oh heaven help me, I’m a goner! One of my favorites is sodium pinot-barbiedoll (meaning sodium Pentothal, of course)! David hears and says things that are not quite right, but close. Some very funny phrases to be had!
-The book is full of insights. I highlighted a lot. Yum!
-Wow did I ever feel like I was seeing the world through the eyes of someone with Alzheimer’s! Through David’s eyes, everything is off-kilter, wrong, strange, confusing.
-David’s interactions are fascinating and intense, especially with his daughter and a long-lost friend. I was at attention, savoring every word, wondering what would happen next. I was usually embarrassed for David, and I sweated out people’s uncomfortable reaction to him. People have such trouble trying to handle someone with dementia, and the author conveys this discomfort, this awkwardness, beautifully. Yum yum again.
-This story is told in third person. What?? How to get so deeply inside someone’s head if the story isn’t told in first person? It’s bizarre (and brilliant) that we get to see David’s world so clearly. David sees things through a glaze, as his memories fade in and out and his mind plays tricks on him, yet at the same time, objects stand out in high relief. Very trippy. Conversations seem vague and weird and often hushed. There’s some unreliable narrating going on, as David’s take on reality isn’t to be trusted. I love me an unreliable narrator!
-David is a rich, aloof person. I was surprised I was fond of him, since he wasn’t personable or relatable. A skilled author, that’s what’s going on here!
A few (of many) favorite quotes:
“… the day would come and he’d find that the contents of his brain had been excised with an ice cream scoop instead of these dainty little teaspoons, here and there.”
“He was sometimes a figure standing on the shore, watching himself float away, and sometimes he was on the ice floe, losing sight of land.”
“Amyloid plaque, the doctor said so often, often enough that David started hearing it as Amy Lloyd plaque. I hate you, Amy Lloyd, he thought idly.”
I loved Cline’s The Girls. This is a totally different kind of story, which shows the author’s range. I just read that this book is long-listed for the Booker Prize. It’s deserved—and exciting!
This is a sad book, but beautiful. I hardly ever recommend reading a blurb, but the Goodreads blurb is excellent and it does not give spoilers. Check it out.
This is how it’s done, folks. Kudos to Cline! Highly recommended!
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.
Expected publication date: September 8, 2026
Ah, finally, a book that sent me bouncing—and blabbing about how good it is! Oh I am so excited! The language is to die for! It opens with a demented man, David, and his assistant, Cody, on a plane to Switzerland.
David is always trying to grasp what is really going on. Often he is clueless or misinterprets what’s happening. And while he’s trying to hold on for dear life, snippets of long-ago memories come into his head. Through these memories, we get a real sense of what his life was like before he started slipping.
Why I loved it:
-Every word is carefully placed. And every word counts; not an extraneous word to be had. I was mesmerized! This writer means business, and she is a master of her craft! In awe, simply in awe.
-The style is sort of stream-of-consciousness and it has this cool rhythm, like jazz. You can always seduce me with language that dances like this. Cha cha cha!
-There’s word play. Oh heaven help me, I’m a goner! One of my favorites is sodium pinot-barbiedoll (meaning sodium Pentothal, of course)! David hears and says things that are not quite right, but close. Some very funny phrases to be had!
-The book is full of insights. I highlighted a lot. Yum!
-Wow did I ever feel like I was seeing the world through the eyes of someone with Alzheimer’s! Through David’s eyes, everything is off-kilter, wrong, strange, confusing.
-David’s interactions are fascinating and intense, especially with his daughter and a long-lost friend. I was at attention, savoring every word, wondering what would happen next. I was usually embarrassed for David, and I sweated out people’s uncomfortable reaction to him. People have such trouble trying to handle someone with dementia, and the author conveys this discomfort, this awkwardness, beautifully. Yum yum again.
-This story is told in third person. What?? How to get so deeply inside someone’s head if the story isn’t told in first person? It’s bizarre (and brilliant) that we get to see David’s world so clearly. David sees things through a glaze, as his memories fade in and out and his mind plays tricks on him, yet at the same time, objects stand out in high relief. Very trippy. Conversations seem vague and weird and often hushed. There’s some unreliable narrating going on, as David’s take on reality isn’t to be trusted. I love me an unreliable narrator!
-David is a rich, aloof person. I was surprised I was fond of him, since he wasn’t personable or relatable. A skilled author, that’s what’s going on here!
A few (of many) favorite quotes:
“… the day would come and he’d find that the contents of his brain had been excised with an ice cream scoop instead of these dainty little teaspoons, here and there.”
“He was sometimes a figure standing on the shore, watching himself float away, and sometimes he was on the ice floe, losing sight of land.”
“Amyloid plaque, the doctor said so often, often enough that David started hearing it as Amy Lloyd plaque. I hate you, Amy Lloyd, he thought idly.”
I loved Cline’s The Girls. This is a totally different kind of story, which shows the author’s range. I just read that this book is long-listed for the Booker Prize. It’s deserved—and exciting!
This is a sad book, but beautiful. I hardly ever recommend reading a blurb, but the Goodreads blurb is excellent and it does not give spoilers. Check it out.
This is how it’s done, folks. Kudos to Cline! Highly recommended!
Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy.
Expected publication date: September 8, 2026
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A stream of conscious narration of a man’s last journey.
David Hastings is a retired executive in his 70’s that has Alzheimers and he is traveling to Switzerland with his assistant to voluntarily end his life.
The author does such a fantastic job of portraying what the mind must do in an Alzheimer’s patient, makes you think she must have someone close to her with or having had the disease.
As this few days of his journey progresses, we learn more about him and the life he led.
This was a very immersing and affecting read.
4.5
Thank you to NetGalley and Random house for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.
David Hastings is a retired executive in his 70’s that has Alzheimers and he is traveling to Switzerland with his assistant to voluntarily end his life.
The author does such a fantastic job of portraying what the mind must do in an Alzheimer’s patient, makes you think she must have someone close to her with or having had the disease.
As this few days of his journey progresses, we learn more about him and the life he led.
This was a very immersing and affecting read.
4.5
Thank you to NetGalley and Random house for the free ebook in exchange for an honest review.
September 8, 2026
We just don’t do gonzo publishing stories like we used to.
Twelve years ago, publicity focused on Emma Cline like sunlight through a magnifying glass. The 25-year-old unpublished novelist had secured a three-book deal reportedly worth $2 million. In 2016, The Girls, her hot debut novel — inspired by the Manson family, no less! — was the “it” book of the season, sparking enthusiastic reviews (my own included), gauzy profiles, and talk of a movie (still unmade, though Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović is rumored to direct it this fall).
As so rarely happens, that unhinged enthusiasm proved largely on point. Cline followed up with a superb story collection, Daddy, and then another fine novel, The Guest, about a young escort running out of time and money in the Hamptons.
Her new novel, Switzy, is the first to move beyond the heliosphere of that initial blaze of glory, though it’s already been longlisted for the Booker Prize and an excerpt ran last month in The New Yorker. The subject excites none of the lurid frisson of the Manson cult or the foundering of a sex worker. No longer writing about the way women contend with men, Cline has turned her attention to the way an old man contends with mortality. It’s about as sexy as compression socks.
David Hastings is a wealthy businessman shunted into retirement after committing an expensive financial error, probably caused by Alzheimer’s.
“It wasn’t technically early-onset,” he claims. Though he’s in his 70s, “it probably always felt early, no matter how old you were.”
That’s David’s voice — or the complicated sum of David and Cline’s voices, which allows Switzy to glide down the asymptote of his consciousness, approaching disintegration while articulating the descent. As a work of narrative technique, it’s astonishing; as a journey of emotional concentration, it’s harrowing. Cline has a profound grasp of the muscle memory of social interaction, the extent to which David can act the part of a thoughtful older gentleman with the right gestures and asides, long after he has little idea what’s happening.
We meet David when he’s already en route to Zurich, where he’s scheduled to end his life by assisted suicide. As befits a man of his consequence and executive privilege, he’s...
You can read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/emm...
Twelve years ago, publicity focused on Emma Cline like sunlight through a magnifying glass. The 25-year-old unpublished novelist had secured a three-book deal reportedly worth $2 million. In 2016, The Girls, her hot debut novel — inspired by the Manson family, no less! — was the “it” book of the season, sparking enthusiastic reviews (my own included), gauzy profiles, and talk of a movie (still unmade, though Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović is rumored to direct it this fall).
As so rarely happens, that unhinged enthusiasm proved largely on point. Cline followed up with a superb story collection, Daddy, and then another fine novel, The Guest, about a young escort running out of time and money in the Hamptons.
Her new novel, Switzy, is the first to move beyond the heliosphere of that initial blaze of glory, though it’s already been longlisted for the Booker Prize and an excerpt ran last month in The New Yorker. The subject excites none of the lurid frisson of the Manson cult or the foundering of a sex worker. No longer writing about the way women contend with men, Cline has turned her attention to the way an old man contends with mortality. It’s about as sexy as compression socks.
David Hastings is a wealthy businessman shunted into retirement after committing an expensive financial error, probably caused by Alzheimer’s.
“It wasn’t technically early-onset,” he claims. Though he’s in his 70s, “it probably always felt early, no matter how old you were.”
That’s David’s voice — or the complicated sum of David and Cline’s voices, which allows Switzy to glide down the asymptote of his consciousness, approaching disintegration while articulating the descent. As a work of narrative technique, it’s astonishing; as a journey of emotional concentration, it’s harrowing. Cline has a profound grasp of the muscle memory of social interaction, the extent to which David can act the part of a thoughtful older gentleman with the right gestures and asides, long after he has little idea what’s happening.
We meet David when he’s already en route to Zurich, where he’s scheduled to end his life by assisted suicide. As befits a man of his consequence and executive privilege, he’s...
You can read the rest of this review for free on Substack:
https://roncharles.substack.com/p/emm...
Want to Read
September 1, 2026emma "all hits no misses" cline
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August 1, 2026Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
Thank you to Random House for the early review copy. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
When you are young, everyone encourages you to think about and plan for your future. But once you've reached the end of your life, all you can help but think about is the past. What if, while nearing the end, you were unable to keep a firm grip on reality? That is the struggle the protagonist, David Hastings, has while on the final leg of his earthly journey.
His mind is fracturing, the past and present intermingling in confusing ways that dredge up old memories and infuse with his present struggles.
Regrets of working too much--and all for what?--combine with the guilt of past wrongs, his disconnect from his own daughter morphs with the only close connection he has, his assistant, Cody.
Emma Cline does such an excellent job putting the reader directly in the mind of David. The prose reflects these dissonant thoughts and moments, as he jumps from scene to scene and location to location, sometimes losing the connective tissue that makes a life feel linear, instead of a messy map of days with no bearing on one another.
Simultaneously, there's this subtle commentary about David, in his mid-70s, and his generation feeling extremely disoriented and disconnected from what the world has become. He seems to wonder and starts to believe, would it just be better for him to be gone from something he no longer recognizes? How do we reconcile our past experiences with the present circumstances, and is there any hope for a future we can barely begin to imagine?
It's a heartbreaking, but complex look at aging, life choices, and relationships that I think marks a distinct shift in Emma Cline's career, one that makes me eager to see where she goes from here.
Thank you to Random House for the early review copy. All thoughts & opinions are my own.
When you are young, everyone encourages you to think about and plan for your future. But once you've reached the end of your life, all you can help but think about is the past. What if, while nearing the end, you were unable to keep a firm grip on reality? That is the struggle the protagonist, David Hastings, has while on the final leg of his earthly journey.
His mind is fracturing, the past and present intermingling in confusing ways that dredge up old memories and infuse with his present struggles.
Regrets of working too much--and all for what?--combine with the guilt of past wrongs, his disconnect from his own daughter morphs with the only close connection he has, his assistant, Cody.
Emma Cline does such an excellent job putting the reader directly in the mind of David. The prose reflects these dissonant thoughts and moments, as he jumps from scene to scene and location to location, sometimes losing the connective tissue that makes a life feel linear, instead of a messy map of days with no bearing on one another.
Simultaneously, there's this subtle commentary about David, in his mid-70s, and his generation feeling extremely disoriented and disconnected from what the world has become. He seems to wonder and starts to believe, would it just be better for him to be gone from something he no longer recognizes? How do we reconcile our past experiences with the present circumstances, and is there any hope for a future we can barely begin to imagine?
It's a heartbreaking, but complex look at aging, life choices, and relationships that I think marks a distinct shift in Emma Cline's career, one that makes me eager to see where she goes from here.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Booker Longlisted 2026!
'Someone had told him once: You should always leave a party right when you think to yourself, I'm having such a good time at this party. Because after that they had said the night could only go downhill.'
David Hastings has dementia and he's made a decision to travel to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland before his condition means a life of care and no awareness . Emma Cline's latest novel couldn't have been written at a more apt as around the world the right to euthanasia is being debated and in many countries now being fully recognised as an important path to providing dignity.
Switzy follows the final few days of David's life as he leaves home in the USA- ably supported by his assistant Cody -and travels to Europe; first to London to see his daughter and grandson and then onto Switzerland where he hopes to find peace with an old school friend in France as well as commit his inal act.
David has lived in the world of big business and has experienced what luxury and opulence is but as he journeys to Zurich, he reflects on the meaning ( or meaningless) of the life of the rich and "successful" as well as digging deeper into his school days where he betrayed a true friendship.
Thoughts also explore the world of today and how it is not easy for anyone to be at peace and feel fractured within themselves- especially in relation to their brains and minds and the continual bombardment of imagery on screens. "Now there were a million mental jaunts available to you in every moment, consciousness in a constant sate of fracture, and even before he'd actually lost his mind, he'd lost his mind; everyone."
As David travels from private jet to London to luxury hotels and onwards, he begins to lose grip of what is happening around him. Emma Cline's incredible prose takes on this journey of fragmentation as David loses thought and understanding of his surroundings but is fully composed mentis about the key reason for his travels. The staccato like sentences through the novel add to a sense of splintering from living to confusion to death.
This is not an easy read but I was gripped from the start and devoured the book in a couple of days. The only thing that kept coming to mind was that the choices that David made were mainly from within the realms of wealth and for many this choice of a dignified choice may not be so possible.
This is a superb novel, unforgettable and deeply moving and one I will recommend - with a sense of awareness for individual circumstances. If this novel opens up discussions and makes us all confront our immortality and what is of true value then that is no bad thing.
Thank you to Chatto and Windus and NetGalley for the advance copy and an honest and unbiased review.
'Someone had told him once: You should always leave a party right when you think to yourself, I'm having such a good time at this party. Because after that they had said the night could only go downhill.'
David Hastings has dementia and he's made a decision to travel to an assisted dying clinic in Switzerland before his condition means a life of care and no awareness . Emma Cline's latest novel couldn't have been written at a more apt as around the world the right to euthanasia is being debated and in many countries now being fully recognised as an important path to providing dignity.
Switzy follows the final few days of David's life as he leaves home in the USA- ably supported by his assistant Cody -and travels to Europe; first to London to see his daughter and grandson and then onto Switzerland where he hopes to find peace with an old school friend in France as well as commit his inal act.
David has lived in the world of big business and has experienced what luxury and opulence is but as he journeys to Zurich, he reflects on the meaning ( or meaningless) of the life of the rich and "successful" as well as digging deeper into his school days where he betrayed a true friendship.
Thoughts also explore the world of today and how it is not easy for anyone to be at peace and feel fractured within themselves- especially in relation to their brains and minds and the continual bombardment of imagery on screens. "Now there were a million mental jaunts available to you in every moment, consciousness in a constant sate of fracture, and even before he'd actually lost his mind, he'd lost his mind; everyone."
As David travels from private jet to London to luxury hotels and onwards, he begins to lose grip of what is happening around him. Emma Cline's incredible prose takes on this journey of fragmentation as David loses thought and understanding of his surroundings but is fully composed mentis about the key reason for his travels. The staccato like sentences through the novel add to a sense of splintering from living to confusion to death.
This is not an easy read but I was gripped from the start and devoured the book in a couple of days. The only thing that kept coming to mind was that the choices that David made were mainly from within the realms of wealth and for many this choice of a dignified choice may not be so possible.
This is a superb novel, unforgettable and deeply moving and one I will recommend - with a sense of awareness for individual circumstances. If this novel opens up discussions and makes us all confront our immortality and what is of true value then that is no bad thing.
Thank you to Chatto and Windus and NetGalley for the advance copy and an honest and unbiased review.
June 17, 2026
I wish I could post a review that is just a video of my face and the gamut of expressions it made while reading this.
July 31, 2026
You’ll be hearing from my therapist, Emma Cline.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Rating: 5* of five
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE Shortlist will be announced on September 22.
The Publisher Says: A mesmerizing portrait of an aging man’s last pilgrimage, from the New York Times best selling author of The Girls and The Guest.
A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.
A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.
This is what David Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.
His final destination is Zurich.
David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.
As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: First, read this:
It's not the creeping horror of the smartphone-reading generation's inability to see the meaning-carrying blocks of text I still call paragraphs this time, it's the unmooring, the complexification of a dementia-raddled mind that has these single-line statements progressing down the page exactly as David's mind progresses down the legibility scale. He can parse less and less information, understand fewer and fewer ideas and concepts as his mind decouples meaning and experience.
A life lived amid the intense and complicated whirl of global finance. A life lived without awareness of what he was undervaluing, like most of us lead. A life that, now that he's losing his Self to the unraveling of dementia, he's decided to end...seemingly without reference to anyone else, a final act of solipsistic capitalism as there are no other stakeholders left in his world.
An uncomfortable indictment of the entirety of the life he's choosing to end.
It's a story I read in fits and starts because I kept feeling the need to step away from David so I could (re)gain perspective on him; is he, was he, only ever a monster or has he lost the parts of his self-constructed identity that were warm and inviting and needing and needed to the ravages now making him feel the need to leave his world?
I never found an answer. I wonder if he did, and so disliked what he found that assisted dying sounded like a way out of the emotional reckoning that is the end of life.
It felt to me that it would be well within his character to choose that last for those selfish reasons. I support his decision, no matter how he arrived at it, because he like all of us deserves to choose what kind of ending he gets. But wow...to leave it until you've decided you're going to die to make the amends you should have made long ago?
So very solipsistic, fearful, cowardly, and typical.
A fascinating story richly deserving a place in the Booker Prize conversation for this year. Also deserving of praise for contributing to multiple societal conversations we very, very badly need to have.
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE Shortlist will be announced on September 22.
The Publisher Says: A mesmerizing portrait of an aging man’s last pilgrimage, from the New York Times best selling author of The Girls and The Guest.
A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.
A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.
This is what David Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades.
His final destination is Zurich.
David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.
As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Review: First, read this:
And maybe it made sense that this task proved so difficult, that the attempt to write the letter only underscored the necessity of the letter: things really had become unmanage-able. Other words for it: unbearable; meaning-less.
Disconcerting, this mental ice floe, populated only by David, floating off into the polar darkness. He was some-times a figure standing on the shore, watching himself float away, and sometimes he was on the ice floe, losing sight of land.
The ice floe-he had tried to write about that. In the letter.
In his strange new child's handwriting, these fat, scratched-out blocks.
The ice floe. The white room in the brain. How he knew when he was smiling and it was an error.
This dark hour, this loneliness.
Fear which lacked a shape. A dark, crumpled coat thrown carelessly into the corner of an unfamiliar room.
It's not the creeping horror of the smartphone-reading generation's inability to see the meaning-carrying blocks of text I still call paragraphs this time, it's the unmooring, the complexification of a dementia-raddled mind that has these single-line statements progressing down the page exactly as David's mind progresses down the legibility scale. He can parse less and less information, understand fewer and fewer ideas and concepts as his mind decouples meaning and experience.
A life lived amid the intense and complicated whirl of global finance. A life lived without awareness of what he was undervaluing, like most of us lead. A life that, now that he's losing his Self to the unraveling of dementia, he's decided to end...seemingly without reference to anyone else, a final act of solipsistic capitalism as there are no other stakeholders left in his world.
An uncomfortable indictment of the entirety of the life he's choosing to end.
It's a story I read in fits and starts because I kept feeling the need to step away from David so I could (re)gain perspective on him; is he, was he, only ever a monster or has he lost the parts of his self-constructed identity that were warm and inviting and needing and needed to the ravages now making him feel the need to leave his world?
I never found an answer. I wonder if he did, and so disliked what he found that assisted dying sounded like a way out of the emotional reckoning that is the end of life.
It felt to me that it would be well within his character to choose that last for those selfish reasons. I support his decision, no matter how he arrived at it, because he like all of us deserves to choose what kind of ending he gets. But wow...to leave it until you've decided you're going to die to make the amends you should have made long ago?
So very solipsistic, fearful, cowardly, and typical.
A fascinating story richly deserving a place in the Booker Prize conversation for this year. Also deserving of praise for contributing to multiple societal conversations we very, very badly need to have.
May 4, 2026
literally scarier than most horror novels!!!!
everyone dreads getting old and the deterioration of our bodies and minds; here, Cline puts us into the mind of someone experiencing this in real time. the writing is chilling and really difficult to read at times because of how visceral it is - we as the reader follow along in David’s mind as he starts forgetting words, numbers, and the shame of needing assistance in everyday tasks. it’s a real gut punch of a book that puts a lot of things into perspective, and it’s not meant to be a very ‘enjoyable’ read, so make sure you’re in the mood for this type of story, but the writing is so impressively immersive that made me full of dread while reading. Yay!
everyone dreads getting old and the deterioration of our bodies and minds; here, Cline puts us into the mind of someone experiencing this in real time. the writing is chilling and really difficult to read at times because of how visceral it is - we as the reader follow along in David’s mind as he starts forgetting words, numbers, and the shame of needing assistance in everyday tasks. it’s a real gut punch of a book that puts a lot of things into perspective, and it’s not meant to be a very ‘enjoyable’ read, so make sure you’re in the mood for this type of story, but the writing is so impressively immersive that made me full of dread while reading. Yay!
August 18, 2026
I haven’t read a book by Emma Cline since I was unable to finish The Girls, but with it being longlisted for the Booker this year, I figured I’d give it a try.
Tonally, this is so different from her previous stuff and it seems she has found her stride. Taking a perspective of someone deep into Alzheimer’s, our main character is looking to end the party while it’s still fun (euthanasia). But having to travel outside of the United States and jump through many hoops while losing time, space, context, situations is incredibly taxing.
This book is a ride to be sure. It feels strangely eye opening to the anger, outbursts and other emotions that pop out with people suffering from this disease. It’s clear there was a lot of research and most likely some personal experience. We are never quite sure who is on your characters side or where he is at certain times. It’s disorienting while also being weirdly calming at times. It feels like looking through the eyes of a newborn while retaining adulthood in other facets.
There is one scene that will stay forever with me in a hotel room with a woman who may or may not be a sex worker, or perhaps just a person who is wanting to enjoy another’s company. I can see why this is long listed for the Booker and it’s incredibly deserved. It’s unique, haunting, and fulfilling all at the same time.
Tonally, this is so different from her previous stuff and it seems she has found her stride. Taking a perspective of someone deep into Alzheimer’s, our main character is looking to end the party while it’s still fun (euthanasia). But having to travel outside of the United States and jump through many hoops while losing time, space, context, situations is incredibly taxing.
This book is a ride to be sure. It feels strangely eye opening to the anger, outbursts and other emotions that pop out with people suffering from this disease. It’s clear there was a lot of research and most likely some personal experience. We are never quite sure who is on your characters side or where he is at certain times. It’s disorienting while also being weirdly calming at times. It feels like looking through the eyes of a newborn while retaining adulthood in other facets.
There is one scene that will stay forever with me in a hotel room with a woman who may or may not be a sex worker, or perhaps just a person who is wanting to enjoy another’s company. I can see why this is long listed for the Booker and it’s incredibly deserved. It’s unique, haunting, and fulfilling all at the same time.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Booker Longlist #11
4.5, rounded ip.
Had never read Cline before, but from what I hear this is vastly different from her first three offerings anyway. Although the subject matter is sad and somewhat depressing (assisted suicide in lieu of worsening dementia), the book is not as bleak as that would portend, and there is actually a lot of 'life' and wry humor here also.
Cline is firmly in control of her subject, and I liked how little nuggets of information or nods to things in the past keep recurring throughout the book. I found the reasons for David and Tom's estrangement to be both believable and heartbreaking. I raced through the final 60% in only a few hours, so that right there is a hearty recommendation. It's second only to John of John in my rankings, so far, with only two more nominees to go. Should easily make the shortlist.
My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC.
4.5, rounded ip.
Had never read Cline before, but from what I hear this is vastly different from her first three offerings anyway. Although the subject matter is sad and somewhat depressing (assisted suicide in lieu of worsening dementia), the book is not as bleak as that would portend, and there is actually a lot of 'life' and wry humor here also.
Cline is firmly in control of her subject, and I liked how little nuggets of information or nods to things in the past keep recurring throughout the book. I found the reasons for David and Tom's estrangement to be both believable and heartbreaking. I raced through the final 60% in only a few hours, so that right there is a hearty recommendation. It's second only to John of John in my rankings, so far, with only two more nominees to go. Should easily make the shortlist.
My thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for the ARC.
September 9, 2026
I had a hard time connecting to the story due to the way it was written. There were points in the story where I just wanted to book to get to the point it was going to without all the sidetracked that were happening. The way the story has no quotation had thrown me off at the start but as I kept reading the book I learned to ignore it.
The story being in David pov was done nicely, especially where we get to learn about his last journey and thoughts before he kills himself. We get to read how he starts to lose his memory more and more as the books goes on and seemly how it affects him. There were times where I felt a profound sense of sorrow for him but then the storyline was overly drawn out and I lost that feeling. I admit the ending did have me in tears but did I sob my eyes out? No I haven’t mainly due to the reason that I didn’t feel overly connected to him.
I do feel like this book was unnecessarily long. Personally I feel like it should’ve been 250 pages max instead of 343. Especially when David was supposed to meet up with his daughter which took only 2 chapters to do so and meeting his friend took 1 chapter. The other part of the story was just his thoughts on everything that was happening.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.
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𐙚⋆°. preread
I have requested this book based on the synopsis because it has gotten me intrigued so I’m curious to see what I’ll think of it.
The story being in David pov was done nicely, especially where we get to learn about his last journey and thoughts before he kills himself. We get to read how he starts to lose his memory more and more as the books goes on and seemly how it affects him. There were times where I felt a profound sense of sorrow for him but then the storyline was overly drawn out and I lost that feeling. I admit the ending did have me in tears but did I sob my eyes out? No I haven’t mainly due to the reason that I didn’t feel overly connected to him.
I do feel like this book was unnecessarily long. Personally I feel like it should’ve been 250 pages max instead of 343. Especially when David was supposed to meet up with his daughter which took only 2 chapters to do so and meeting his friend took 1 chapter. The other part of the story was just his thoughts on everything that was happening.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this arc in exchange for an honest review.
——————————————————————
𐙚⋆°. preread
I have requested this book based on the synopsis because it has gotten me intrigued so I’m curious to see what I’ll think of it.
August 16, 2026
a bleak yet simultaneously very tender novel. once again emma cline displays her talent at evoking such a specific feeling through her writing (she also did this with the girls and the guest). i read this while going through a bit of of a hard time though, which needless to say didn’t make for the best experience. maybe i will revisit it in a few months, but i do think it’s a great novel. will write a proper review once i’ve organised my reading notes better!
thank you vintage books for the advanced copy <3
thank you vintage books for the advanced copy <3
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
[4.5] Inhabiting the porous mind of septuagenarian David Hastings as he prepares to die was scary and intense. Alzheimer's disease is at the top of my list of fears, and I needed to take frequent breaks from this book. Because Hastings, once a successful businessman, was not self-aware, his musings and thoughts about his personal life were both mesmerizing and obtuse. This is a gripping and thoughtful book that is brilliantly imagined by Cline.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the early galley.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for the early galley.
July 6, 2026
Review to come, but this is one of the saddest and most unassumingly beautiful books I have ever read.
++++
Is there anything more terrifying than leaving a life knowing you not only won't be missed, but won't be known?
Our protagonist, David, is on a journey to revisit old friends and family before his memory completely fails him, and the whole of the book is simply us riding along with him while he remembers, revisits and forgets.
This book is not sad in a "A Little Life" kind of way, in which a character is created, made to be loved by the audience and tortured to break our hearts. This book is sad in a terrifying, deep dark passage of time, slippage of identity, face-to-face with mortality and loss of selfhood, crippling anxiety of being forever unknown kind of way. The saddest part of this book is that our narrator, a man whose identity is being lost to his failing neurons' ability to hold together, finds no one to miss him as he leaves his life. It is precisely because he is unremarkable, unlovable, and deeply flawed in a wholly uninteresting way, that makes this book so crushing to read.
I will say: this is a book to give time to. Not because it's challenging on a sentence level, but because we are on a journey with someone whose memory is falling out from underneath him, and we too will have to reread sentences, go back a page or two once in a while, retrace our steps, be okay with forgetting. I will also say that I highlighted more passages, sat longer with sentences, and felt a deep hollowing out of my whole sense of self more than with any book I can remember reading.
I can't wait for the world to read this book when it comes out in September. A huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the advance copy of my new favorite book to read when I want to feel crushed by the weight of mortality and memory.
++++
Is there anything more terrifying than leaving a life knowing you not only won't be missed, but won't be known?
Our protagonist, David, is on a journey to revisit old friends and family before his memory completely fails him, and the whole of the book is simply us riding along with him while he remembers, revisits and forgets.
This book is not sad in a "A Little Life" kind of way, in which a character is created, made to be loved by the audience and tortured to break our hearts. This book is sad in a terrifying, deep dark passage of time, slippage of identity, face-to-face with mortality and loss of selfhood, crippling anxiety of being forever unknown kind of way. The saddest part of this book is that our narrator, a man whose identity is being lost to his failing neurons' ability to hold together, finds no one to miss him as he leaves his life. It is precisely because he is unremarkable, unlovable, and deeply flawed in a wholly uninteresting way, that makes this book so crushing to read.
I will say: this is a book to give time to. Not because it's challenging on a sentence level, but because we are on a journey with someone whose memory is falling out from underneath him, and we too will have to reread sentences, go back a page or two once in a while, retrace our steps, be okay with forgetting. I will also say that I highlighted more passages, sat longer with sentences, and felt a deep hollowing out of my whole sense of self more than with any book I can remember reading.
I can't wait for the world to read this book when it comes out in September. A huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the advance copy of my new favorite book to read when I want to feel crushed by the weight of mortality and memory.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Racing Away from the Finish Line
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize, Emma Cline’s third novel, “Switzy,” stands among my favorite books of the year. The story offers a hypnotic, haunting, and deeply poignant portrait of David Hastings, a retired executive entering the final, delicate stage of his life.
Though built upon a deceptively simple premise, the story unfolds into a deeply moving and intimate character study. David, who is navigating the early stages of Alzheimer’s– a condition the author intentionally avoids naming– sets out on a final journey across Europe toward Zurich, where he plans to utilize assisted-death services. What follows is a devastating portrait of decline that manages to turn the messy, fragmented reality of cognitive decline into a coherent narrative achievement.
Cline reportedly conducted extensive research into the medical realities of Alzheimer’s, and the result is nothing short of remarkable. It is difficult to comprehend how she captured the visceral experience of a deteriorating mind—the misheard words, the sudden loss of self-recognition, the desperate grasp for "mental breadcrumbs"—so vividly without having endured it personally. The level of detail makes the text feel uncomfortably real, transforming what could have been a clinical observation into an immersive, fever-dream experience.
David’s internal evolution is portrayed with striking authenticity. Beyond his fading memory, his diminishing independence is revealed through his defense mechanisms and evolving sense of reality. While David is not inherently a likable figure, our empathy stems from connecting with his internal battle. This poignant, evocative portrait of cognitive decline speaks deeply not only to those who have witnessed a loved one slowly dissolve, but with anyone reflecting on their own future and the limits of their own agency.
The heart of the book lies in the quiet, heartbreaking moments where David attempts to reconcile his past compromises with his present reality. “Switzy” is an uneasy, haunting work of fiction that leaves an indelible mark, forcing you to pause and reflect on the final glimpses of a life. It is an extraordinary, perceptive achievement that will resonate for a long time.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Switzy #NetGalley
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize, Emma Cline’s third novel, “Switzy,” stands among my favorite books of the year. The story offers a hypnotic, haunting, and deeply poignant portrait of David Hastings, a retired executive entering the final, delicate stage of his life.
Though built upon a deceptively simple premise, the story unfolds into a deeply moving and intimate character study. David, who is navigating the early stages of Alzheimer’s– a condition the author intentionally avoids naming– sets out on a final journey across Europe toward Zurich, where he plans to utilize assisted-death services. What follows is a devastating portrait of decline that manages to turn the messy, fragmented reality of cognitive decline into a coherent narrative achievement.
Cline reportedly conducted extensive research into the medical realities of Alzheimer’s, and the result is nothing short of remarkable. It is difficult to comprehend how she captured the visceral experience of a deteriorating mind—the misheard words, the sudden loss of self-recognition, the desperate grasp for "mental breadcrumbs"—so vividly without having endured it personally. The level of detail makes the text feel uncomfortably real, transforming what could have been a clinical observation into an immersive, fever-dream experience.
David’s internal evolution is portrayed with striking authenticity. Beyond his fading memory, his diminishing independence is revealed through his defense mechanisms and evolving sense of reality. While David is not inherently a likable figure, our empathy stems from connecting with his internal battle. This poignant, evocative portrait of cognitive decline speaks deeply not only to those who have witnessed a loved one slowly dissolve, but with anyone reflecting on their own future and the limits of their own agency.
The heart of the book lies in the quiet, heartbreaking moments where David attempts to reconcile his past compromises with his present reality. “Switzy” is an uneasy, haunting work of fiction that leaves an indelible mark, forcing you to pause and reflect on the final glimpses of a life. It is an extraordinary, perceptive achievement that will resonate for a long time.
Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Switzy #NetGalley
September 8, 2026
Emma Cline has a style all her own, and I'm there for it. She manages to build suspense even into stories that are not inherently suspenseful. Here I'm giving five stars for the writing and not necessarily for my enjoyment of the novel. It's hard to enjoy a novel that illuminates the end of life with such an unsparing lens. Especially if you feel like that end is rapidly approaching.
Emma takes us through the final days of a wealthy man, David, who has decided to avail himself of medically assisted death in Switzerland in the face of Alzheimer's disease. That's literally the plot. We are close inside David's head as he tries to make amends and as he faces his final good-byes to the world. The book is most powerful when it reveals his regrets and his attempt to face up to the fact that his life (like most people's) hasn't been all one thing.
It's powerful and moving, but the reader must be patient with the slow build to some of the novel's most poignant moments.
Emma takes us through the final days of a wealthy man, David, who has decided to avail himself of medically assisted death in Switzerland in the face of Alzheimer's disease. That's literally the plot. We are close inside David's head as he tries to make amends and as he faces his final good-byes to the world. The book is most powerful when it reveals his regrets and his attempt to face up to the fact that his life (like most people's) hasn't been all one thing.
It's powerful and moving, but the reader must be patient with the slow build to some of the novel's most poignant moments.
August 29, 2026
„In die Schweiz“ ist ein beeindruckender und zugleich bedrückender Roman über das langsame Verschwinden der eigenen Identität. David weiß, dass sein Verstand ihn aufgrund seiner Demenz zunehmend im Stich lässt und reist deshalb zu einer Sterbehilfe in die Schweiz. Während die Gegenwart für ihn immer schwerer zu greifen ist, drängen Erinnerungen an seine Kindheit, seine Familie und vergangene Beziehungen an die Oberfläche.
Besonders gelungen fand ich die Perspektive. Davids Gedankenstrom ist sogartig geschrieben. Man erlebt unmittelbar mit, wie sich seine Wahrnehmung verändert, wie Erinnerungen und Gegenwart ineinanderfließen und wie er immer wieder versucht, Zusammenhänge herzustellen, die ihm zunehmend entgleiten. Gerade die Perspektive eines Menschen, der die Kontrolle über seine eigenen Gedanken verliert, fand ich sehr interessant umgesetzt. Gleichzeitig liegt genau darin auch meine Schwierigkeit mit dem Roman. Davids Gedanken kreisen immer wieder um dieselben Erinnerungen und Fragen. Was anfangs faszinierend und beklemmend wirkt, wurde für mich irgendwann wiederholend. Immer wieder verliert er sich in seinen eigenen Gedankengängen, ohne wirklich zu einem neuen Verständnis zu gelangen. Das ist natürlich auch Teil der Krankheit: David kann seine Lebensentscheidungen nicht mehr so klar hinterfragen oder einordnen, wie es eine klassische Romanfigur tun würde. Dadurch entsteht ein ungewöhnlich unmittelbarer Einblick in seinen Zustand. Gleichzeitig hat diese Erzählweise bei mir irgendwann den Reiz verloren.
„In die Schweiz“ ist deshalb für mich ein Buch, das sprachlich und konzeptionell interessant und stellenweise sehr berührend ist. Aber gerade die Wiederholungen haben mich im Verlauf immer stärker aus der Geschichte herausgebracht. Andere Bücher von Emma Cline haben mir deshalb besser gefallen.
Besonders gelungen fand ich die Perspektive. Davids Gedankenstrom ist sogartig geschrieben. Man erlebt unmittelbar mit, wie sich seine Wahrnehmung verändert, wie Erinnerungen und Gegenwart ineinanderfließen und wie er immer wieder versucht, Zusammenhänge herzustellen, die ihm zunehmend entgleiten. Gerade die Perspektive eines Menschen, der die Kontrolle über seine eigenen Gedanken verliert, fand ich sehr interessant umgesetzt. Gleichzeitig liegt genau darin auch meine Schwierigkeit mit dem Roman. Davids Gedanken kreisen immer wieder um dieselben Erinnerungen und Fragen. Was anfangs faszinierend und beklemmend wirkt, wurde für mich irgendwann wiederholend. Immer wieder verliert er sich in seinen eigenen Gedankengängen, ohne wirklich zu einem neuen Verständnis zu gelangen. Das ist natürlich auch Teil der Krankheit: David kann seine Lebensentscheidungen nicht mehr so klar hinterfragen oder einordnen, wie es eine klassische Romanfigur tun würde. Dadurch entsteht ein ungewöhnlich unmittelbarer Einblick in seinen Zustand. Gleichzeitig hat diese Erzählweise bei mir irgendwann den Reiz verloren.
„In die Schweiz“ ist deshalb für mich ein Buch, das sprachlich und konzeptionell interessant und stellenweise sehr berührend ist. Aber gerade die Wiederholungen haben mich im Verlauf immer stärker aus der Geschichte herausgebracht. Andere Bücher von Emma Cline haben mir deshalb besser gefallen.
September 8, 2026
Booker Longlist Read #8
3.5 stars. As with The Girls, I was really impressed by Emma Cline’s writing. The spare, fragmented style suits this story perfectly, and she does a brilliant job of putting us inside David’s deteriorating mind. We experience his fading memories, confusion and occasional paranoia from frighteningly close range.
What affected me most was the way the past seems to remain vivid even as the present begins to disappear, and how upsetting it must be to realise that you are forgetting things you once did without thinking — even something as simple as tying your shoes.
The experience of being inside an ageing man’s stream of consciousness reminded me so much of Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time, although the two books affected me very differently. Switzy is about a man terrified by everything he can’t remember, while Old God’s Time is about a man haunted by everything he cannot forget.
And that difference probably explains why I couldn’t rate this higher. Old God’s Time made me care deeply about the man who was losing himself; Switzy made me think about what it would be like to lose myself.
That’s very much a matter of personal preference, though — I really appreciate books that make me think, but I love the ones that make me feel.
3.5 stars. As with The Girls, I was really impressed by Emma Cline’s writing. The spare, fragmented style suits this story perfectly, and she does a brilliant job of putting us inside David’s deteriorating mind. We experience his fading memories, confusion and occasional paranoia from frighteningly close range.
What affected me most was the way the past seems to remain vivid even as the present begins to disappear, and how upsetting it must be to realise that you are forgetting things you once did without thinking — even something as simple as tying your shoes.
The experience of being inside an ageing man’s stream of consciousness reminded me so much of Sebastian Barry’s Old God’s Time, although the two books affected me very differently. Switzy is about a man terrified by everything he can’t remember, while Old God’s Time is about a man haunted by everything he cannot forget.
And that difference probably explains why I couldn’t rate this higher. Old God’s Time made me care deeply about the man who was losing himself; Switzy made me think about what it would be like to lose myself.
That’s very much a matter of personal preference, though — I really appreciate books that make me think, but I love the ones that make me feel.
Read
August 16, 2026A very impressive achievement.
For reasons that are both personal and professional, I am growing a bit weary of how often the topic of cognitive decline is woven into the storylines of so many new works of fiction. I do understand why. At this point there is virtually no one alive who has avoided having to deal with it in their own lives, whether directly or indirectly. However, and for similar reasons, it has been a long time since the subject has felt new or revelatory. And characters with dementia are often presented in ways that are a bit off-kilter. (I'm looking at you, The End of Everything and ).
Emma Cline has somehow managed to craft a narrative that convincingly unspools through the perspective of David, a man who has always been an unreliable narrator of his own life and is now well into the more advanced stages of senility. It's remarkably well done and the best portrayal of dementia I have yet encountered.
4.5 stars
For reasons that are both personal and professional, I am growing a bit weary of how often the topic of cognitive decline is woven into the storylines of so many new works of fiction. I do understand why. At this point there is virtually no one alive who has avoided having to deal with it in their own lives, whether directly or indirectly. However, and for similar reasons, it has been a long time since the subject has felt new or revelatory. And characters with dementia are often presented in ways that are a bit off-kilter. (I'm looking at you, The End of Everything and ).
Emma Cline has somehow managed to craft a narrative that convincingly unspools through the perspective of David, a man who has always been an unreliable narrator of his own life and is now well into the more advanced stages of senility. It's remarkably well done and the best portrayal of dementia I have yet encountered.
4.5 stars
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
David Hastings is declining rapidly from Alzheimer's and is making a final journey to Switzerland. He stops along the way to visit the important people in his life, the ones he feels he treated badly, including his daughter and a friend from his youth. The writing reflects the fragmented thoughts of his condition: snippets of songs, memories from childhood, the gaps where words used to be (e.g., David hears 'amyloid plaques' as Amy Lloyd, as if it were someone's name).
Cody, David's caregiver and assistant, is a young man with seemingly endless patience. He is paid for his services and tries to keep his distance, which makes the whole scenario more heartbreaking, because it is clear David has no one else to turn to in his declining days. He had been wealthy and successful, consumed by his work, but money and status offer little comfort now.
Cline's prose let me inhabit another person's view of the world. It is a novel of reckoning: with missed opportunities, with a life not fully lived, and with the regret that accompanies it. It is sad, but also compelling, and I became completely absorbed. If you have ever watched a loved one go through cognitive decline (as I have), you will recognize the truth in it. I will be thinking about this book for a long while.
Many thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy. This book is now available.
Cody, David's caregiver and assistant, is a young man with seemingly endless patience. He is paid for his services and tries to keep his distance, which makes the whole scenario more heartbreaking, because it is clear David has no one else to turn to in his declining days. He had been wealthy and successful, consumed by his work, but money and status offer little comfort now.
Cline's prose let me inhabit another person's view of the world. It is a novel of reckoning: with missed opportunities, with a life not fully lived, and with the regret that accompanies it. It is sad, but also compelling, and I became completely absorbed. If you have ever watched a loved one go through cognitive decline (as I have), you will recognize the truth in it. I will be thinking about this book for a long while.
Many thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance reader’s copy. This book is now available.
September 11, 2026
Longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize
In 2014, a then unknown, unpublished, 25-year-old Columbia MFA graduate Emma Cline won The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, subsequently triggering a bidding war over her Manson murders-inspired debut novel and securing an astonishing seven-figure, three-book deal. The Girls (2016), Daddy (2020) and The Guest (2023) were aggressively marketed: their author was a young, sexy, literary ‘it’ girl, and so her readers would be too. We sold plenty of copies at the bookshop I used to work at; I am yet to feel any compulsion to pick one up for myself.
Switzy, however, makes an interesting pivot. Rather than continuing to write about young women’s agency, desires, and the way they contend with men and a man-made world (no longer as remarkable – or profitable – in a literary landscape dominated by mediocre white women’s takes on the same), Cline here “drop[s] into a consciousness pressurised by its own ending… already slipping away.” Her protagonist is one David Hastings, a wealthy septuagenarian and retired CFO who spent his best years “ma[king] certain numbers swell up and other numbers recede”, and is now witnessing his own mind slowly, painfully desert him. The premise is hardly sexy, and seems far from the author’s usual wheelhouse, which makes it all the more astonishing how brilliantly she makes it work.
We first meet David – accompanied by his assistant Cody – aboard a private jet headed to London; a flying visit to see his daughter and grandson before travelling on to Zurich. They will make one more stop just over the French border to meet with an old friend from boarding school, after which David will be end his life at an assisted-dying facility modelled on Dignitas.
Along the way, we learn of the amyloid plaque that clings to his brain (“I hate you, Amy Lloyd,” he says in one of his many humorous moods), and glide along “this mental ice floe, populated only by David, floating off into the polar darkness." We know how he would like his story to end (“he had to be lucid enough to sign his name, exit with some faculties intact,” he thinks), and can only grasp for its beginning and middle from the increasingly rare, jumbled moments of lucidity that recall the flawed life he once led.
Our real sense of the protagonist as he is, then, comes from his interactions with others: the assistant who patiently leads him from task to task and moment from moment, politely reassures him in his frequent panics and redirects him in moments of confusion; his estranged daughter, who intentionally avoids addressing the signs of his decline, all the while ignorant of this being their final meeting; ‘Ghoul’, who, we might guess, has seen to many others like him with eerie professional competence. At the emotional core of the book is the long-awaited meeting with Tom, once a friend of David’s youth, who no longer knows him for a grave misstep that David himself now struggles to remember but must make amends for.
As a novel, this one brings no resolutions, no easy answers. Its accomplishment lies instead in those small, quiet scenes that, despite the book’s sometimes stifling presentness, lays its devastation bare in a way that the most polished long-form can often only mime at. I am haunted, all these days after having finished reading, by the scenes involving the wristwatch and antiquarian book David intends to pass on to his grandson, and how the latter somehow ends up with Tom, but not quite. One more gesture disappeared into the ether.
The word ‘Alzheimer’s’ never appears in the book, and neither David nor Cline offer any reflections on the mounting debate around the morality of assisted suicide. David’s demise is merely an inevitability; at best the one last thing he can control: “What will it be like when you’re gone?” he asks himself. “Pretty much the same as before you got here.” Instead, the author hones in on attempting to address the “real strangeness” of our mortality and the endings that we “for as long as we can, we keep conveniently and necessarily out of sight.”
Switzy is a difficult read in the best ways possible, a necessary maturation in literary fiction at general and – from where I’m standing – the author’s career in particular. It’s a generous, softly heartbreaking book, and I am convinced I will hold it close to my heart for as long as my mind allows itself to remember it.
In 2014, a then unknown, unpublished, 25-year-old Columbia MFA graduate Emma Cline won The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize, subsequently triggering a bidding war over her Manson murders-inspired debut novel and securing an astonishing seven-figure, three-book deal. The Girls (2016), Daddy (2020) and The Guest (2023) were aggressively marketed: their author was a young, sexy, literary ‘it’ girl, and so her readers would be too. We sold plenty of copies at the bookshop I used to work at; I am yet to feel any compulsion to pick one up for myself.
Switzy, however, makes an interesting pivot. Rather than continuing to write about young women’s agency, desires, and the way they contend with men and a man-made world (no longer as remarkable – or profitable – in a literary landscape dominated by mediocre white women’s takes on the same), Cline here “drop[s] into a consciousness pressurised by its own ending… already slipping away.” Her protagonist is one David Hastings, a wealthy septuagenarian and retired CFO who spent his best years “ma[king] certain numbers swell up and other numbers recede”, and is now witnessing his own mind slowly, painfully desert him. The premise is hardly sexy, and seems far from the author’s usual wheelhouse, which makes it all the more astonishing how brilliantly she makes it work.
We first meet David – accompanied by his assistant Cody – aboard a private jet headed to London; a flying visit to see his daughter and grandson before travelling on to Zurich. They will make one more stop just over the French border to meet with an old friend from boarding school, after which David will be end his life at an assisted-dying facility modelled on Dignitas.
Along the way, we learn of the amyloid plaque that clings to his brain (“I hate you, Amy Lloyd,” he says in one of his many humorous moods), and glide along “this mental ice floe, populated only by David, floating off into the polar darkness." We know how he would like his story to end (“he had to be lucid enough to sign his name, exit with some faculties intact,” he thinks), and can only grasp for its beginning and middle from the increasingly rare, jumbled moments of lucidity that recall the flawed life he once led.
“Someone had told him once: You should always leave a party right when you think to yourself, I'm having such a good time at this party. Because after that they had said the night could only go downhill.”There is light here too, and David’s confusion is often articulated through nicknames (the limo driver becomes ‘meatball’, while he refers to his medical liaison in Zurich as ‘Ghoul’); snatches from Moby-Dick and The Sound of Music; and, perhaps surprisingly, gallows humour that enriches this narrative of fragmentation as much as anything else. But the real draw of this novel, the hypnotic, harrowing beauty of it, is how deeply Cline compels us feel for and empathise with David even as the spaces between the clipped paragraphs – his voice mingled with hers – grow larger, even as ‘David’, never quite in focus to begin with, continues to fade before our eyes.
Our real sense of the protagonist as he is, then, comes from his interactions with others: the assistant who patiently leads him from task to task and moment from moment, politely reassures him in his frequent panics and redirects him in moments of confusion; his estranged daughter, who intentionally avoids addressing the signs of his decline, all the while ignorant of this being their final meeting; ‘Ghoul’, who, we might guess, has seen to many others like him with eerie professional competence. At the emotional core of the book is the long-awaited meeting with Tom, once a friend of David’s youth, who no longer knows him for a grave misstep that David himself now struggles to remember but must make amends for.
As a novel, this one brings no resolutions, no easy answers. Its accomplishment lies instead in those small, quiet scenes that, despite the book’s sometimes stifling presentness, lays its devastation bare in a way that the most polished long-form can often only mime at. I am haunted, all these days after having finished reading, by the scenes involving the wristwatch and antiquarian book David intends to pass on to his grandson, and how the latter somehow ends up with Tom, but not quite. One more gesture disappeared into the ether.
The word ‘Alzheimer’s’ never appears in the book, and neither David nor Cline offer any reflections on the mounting debate around the morality of assisted suicide. David’s demise is merely an inevitability; at best the one last thing he can control: “What will it be like when you’re gone?” he asks himself. “Pretty much the same as before you got here.” Instead, the author hones in on attempting to address the “real strangeness” of our mortality and the endings that we “for as long as we can, we keep conveniently and necessarily out of sight.”
Switzy is a difficult read in the best ways possible, a necessary maturation in literary fiction at general and – from where I’m standing – the author’s career in particular. It’s a generous, softly heartbreaking book, and I am convinced I will hold it close to my heart for as long as my mind allows itself to remember it.
September 11, 2026
i need to sit more on this but wow, so different from cline's other works
September 8, 2026
Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Switzy is the best book I've read in 2026.
I've read other books that are about a dying man's trying to make amends during his final days of living, but none of them equally captured what the hero is going through both mentally and physically with such insight the way Emma Cline has here.
I especially loved how the central character, David's memories are triggered by the smallest objects. It's not just grand scenic views, but things that we walk by on an every day basis.
There's moments that are raw, funny, and touching.
The biggest surprise for me is how Cline avoided any sort of sentiment. The best example is when David reunites with his daughter, Rebecca, and meets her family. There's awkwardness and distance between the them caused by mistakes made by David that isn't wrapped-up in a nice neat package.
Emma Cline has written a book that will divide readers and test their emotions. I fell.in love with Switzy's first chapter which has an unusual mix of death and decadence. This is one of those rare books that I know I'll be talking about nonstop and crossing my fingers for its success.
Switzy is simply put an extraordinary read.
Switzy is the best book I've read in 2026.
I've read other books that are about a dying man's trying to make amends during his final days of living, but none of them equally captured what the hero is going through both mentally and physically with such insight the way Emma Cline has here.
I especially loved how the central character, David's memories are triggered by the smallest objects. It's not just grand scenic views, but things that we walk by on an every day basis.
There's moments that are raw, funny, and touching.
The biggest surprise for me is how Cline avoided any sort of sentiment. The best example is when David reunites with his daughter, Rebecca, and meets her family. There's awkwardness and distance between the them caused by mistakes made by David that isn't wrapped-up in a nice neat package.
Emma Cline has written a book that will divide readers and test their emotions. I fell.in love with Switzy's first chapter which has an unusual mix of death and decadence. This is one of those rare books that I know I'll be talking about nonstop and crossing my fingers for its success.
Switzy is simply put an extraordinary read.
Read
August 15, 2026Emma Cline completely reinvents herself as a writer with each book and you’d be hard pressed to find a through line in her work beyond good writing. Here she reflects on a life lived at end of life with an unreliable narrator with a flickering consciousness as dementia closes in. The claustrophobic way she holds the reader in his dimming and confused mind is briliant. Daisy Johnson says this is her best book and as an achievement in technique it is but I have loved them all. No writer has surprised me as much as Emma Cline has book to book. Thrilled she is now a Booker longlistee, she deserves it. I’ll try to find my reviews of all her books and post them to stories because backlist is beautiful. @penguinbooksaus
July 31, 2026
took me a while to get into but by the end i felt like i’d been hit by a truck (affectionate)
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