TO THE BACK OF BEYOND

From the opening paragraph, Peter Stamm’s To the Back of

Beyond is mysterious and mesmerising.

Thomas and Astrid are in their back garden at the end of the day, at the end of summer, at the end of vacation. When Astrid goes into the house to tend to their children, Thomas stands up, moves to the gate and, “with a bewildered smile that he was only half aware of,” walks away. He does not come back.

Many novels have sprung from the premise of a spouse walking away from a marriage, but Stamm’s take is entirely original. Thomas never planned to leave. He loves Astrid and the children, and it is his thoughts of them that sustain him, keep him warm, during the next few weeks or months as he trudges deeper and deeper into the Alpine wilderness. The book moves smoothly between his point of view and Astrid’s, so skilfully that this inexplicable adventure seems completely plausible.