Switzy: A Novel

by Emma Cline

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.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

Kindle Edition

Expected publication September 8, 2026

About the author

Emma 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.

Reviews

[Marcus (Lit_Laugh_Luv)]

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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[kathryn (le livre en rose)]

well duhhhhh!!!

[Aidan H · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a shameless Emma Cline fanatic. I read her amazing first book, "The Girls", and her follow up to that "The Guest", in one sitting binges. Her character work is astounding, and more importantly, it is incredibly consistent. Cline's protagonists are observers and misanthropes; plots happen in Cline novels, but the focus is on the voice. Always the voice.

When I randomly saw "Switzy" available on NetGalley, I rushed to snap it up. I read it over the course of a week and can say with assuredness that Cline has found her niche. "Daddy" features a slew of characters like the one here in "Switzy" - similarly, her magnificent short story, "Harvey", comes to mind. David Hastings is a man who has aged into his own irrelevance. Powerful-no-more. Rich, but vaguely so. Riddled with regret. In the thralls of something that makes him feel listless, uncontrolled nobody wearing someone else's life. As he ventures closer to his planned assisted death, he leaves sanity behind. He loses faculties, bodily control, memory, and eventually, the very components that make any person whole.

The issues for me with "Switzy" come from the very fact that the disease David Hastings is succumbing to make him a patchy narrator at best. Things happen TO David in "Switzy"; he is passive in the way Alex from "The Guest" was not, and lacks the balance that the narration in "The Girls" possessed. This device makes sense - and works at times - but I think Cline could've benefited from a more put-together David, possibly earlier in the diagnosis to account for more lucidity.

While I wasn't "Switzy"'s biggest fan, I am one of hers. It's hard to follow up a smash like "The Guest"; this is a solid entry, but her weakest yet. That doesn't mean it's not worth your time. Perhaps temper expectations - this is a slower, more wandering piece than her other work. Think "Eurotrash" meets "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" vibes of cool, distanced plotting.

[Joan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading this shortly after Vigil - George Saunders on a wealthy ruthless man at the end of his life - and Departure(s) - Julien Barnes on coming to the end of his own life - here is another end of life book, introducing David, a wealthy business executive who has been diagnosed with dementia and whose condition is advanced and irreversible.
David is confused, but also aware of his situation - 'When the day would come and he'd find that the content of his brain had been excised with an ice cream scooper instead of these dainty little teaspoons, here and there' - and has chosen to go to Zurich to end his life in the company of a young male companion whose task is to steer him through the journey.
THe narrative - and there is very little dialogue in this novel - is stacatto and the style is fast, breathless almost, David experiencing his journey - by private jet lent by a colleague; through London to visit his daugher, and the grandson he barely knows; to the hotel in Zurich; a side-trip to France to meet Tom, his dear friend of schooldays from whom he traumatically split, and from which split he has never recovered, a split which has haunted him for his whole life. As he experiences these events, through the haze of his dementia, David muses on where he has been, the ongoing blurry strangeness of his current dealings with the world, and where he is about to go.
This is a very real insight into the heart of dementia, and the sadness of a life that was financially successful but ends with a man entering his final moments without friends or family, assigned to the care of a patient employee.
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC copy

[Anna W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Switzy follows the mind of a elderly ex-executive as he, with his assistant, navigate his international trip to visit the important figures of his life before his final destination in Zurich. David Hastings is a man who was once important, had purpose and direction, and now feels as if he is fading out of both his own mind and from the world around him. As David wrestles through his current reality of patchy memory, listlessness, and swift unexplained changes in mood or train of thought, we as the reader ride these waves with him.

This is my first experience with Emma Cline and I found the narrative both meandering and engaging. David is an unreliable narrator and his condition renders him a passive participant in the events of his life. There were many points within the story that we will just not have the answer to as he, at this point in his life, has lost the memories and context that could explain.

I didn't find anything wrong with the novel and I enjoyed Cline's style and characterizations, however I don't think I got any message out of this that wasn't already something I identify with, nor did I get it in an innovative way so I don't feel too strongly about this book either way. I will definitely read Cline again and see if her other works resonate a bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Emma Cline for the advanced ebook copy

[James B · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the ebook. David, a retired executive, is on a private plane with his assistant Cody. He resents Cody because David has dementia and relies on Cody to keep him on track. David wants to visit his daughter in London and an old school friend he feels he wronged in France and then on to Zurich to end his days. Just a heartbreaking novel where David knows he needs to say goodbye to these people, but his thoughts jumble and escape him and the meetings are more elliptical than satisfying. The book does such a fascinating job with showing a sharp mind that can so easily forget what happened an hour ago. A great portrait of a difficult man.

[Hannah Jung · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poignant and bittersweet. We follow David through his last few days, as he heads to an assisted dying facility in Zurich. Over the course of these days, he meets with his daughter and grandson, as well as a former friend from childhood, whilst reflecting on the events of his life.

As the novel progresses, the author skilfully captures the fragmented and confused way his thoughts overlap and drift in an out of awareness, and I feel like it gives a really moving depiction of Alzheimer’s.

I had tears in my eyes for the last 50 pages of the book. It was so sad, and so completely gripping. Who are we really? Our actions, our memories, our regrets?

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really struggled with this one. Cline is a gifted writer and this book is full of beautiful prose. Those beautiful sentences just didn't come together as an engaging narrative for me. I imagine if you liked The Guest, you might be more inclined to like this novel. I think vibes based fiction is just not for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[★ molly ★]

e-arc received

[cleo]

oh I'm ready bitch...