Kaat Camerlynck

Emma is in a happy relationship with Jef. But she still meets up with her good friend Thomas to share a strange secluded weekend.

Antwerp, early June. On a sweltering Friday, eight people dream of a different life. There is wind and music, police and paranoia, gossip and arguing. There's an ancient virus, a lost Frisbee, a dead horse, and, wandering the city, an enigmatic phenomenon called Windman who feels everyone's pain but can't seem to help himself. In the evening a party awaits them...

26 people live in the Belgian city of Doel, and they have no plans of moving anywhere. Even if everyone else is busy telling them how hopeless their beloved ghost town is. Vandalised, dilapidated and an ironic destination for urban explorers, car nerds and Dutch techno ravers. Doel is squeezed between an industrial port and a nuclear power station, and since the 1960s the government has regularly tried to raze it to the ground to make space for a container park in the name of globalisation. The school, the shops and even the church have closed, and most houses have either been torn down or abandoned. But the last inhabitants are not giving up. Young as well as old agree to defend Doel to the very end.

An almost deserted museum, a guard wearing high heels, a cinephile thief and a Monet painting. These are the ingredients of a mysterious affair appropriated by Guy Slabbinck and Amir Yatziv. In 2000, Beach in Pourville by Monet, exhibited at the National Museum of Poznań, disappeared, replaced by a crude copy. The painting would be found 10 years later in the home of Robert Z., who here personally presents his own version of events for the first time.

Writer Joris (the author's alter-ego) has packed in his job and left his routine. He wanders through Brussels, pretending to be in other places and as far as we can verify lying to everyone. He stays in a dead-beat motel and meets other absurd people, never to any actual end. Will it be different when he meets Luzie and falls in love?