You

Savage, Bleak, but Elegantly Phrased, Brutality

You by Zoran Drvenkar is the second of his thrillers to be translated into English.

A surreal murderous romp across northern Europe as “you” slaughter the innocent and guilty alike.

How does it feel to be a dead man sitting in a freezer?

Taja wedges two packs of sirloin between your shoulder and the wall. That’s better, even though you’re leaning slightly backward and looking up. Taja tries to free the remote control from your hand. Nothing to be done, you won’t let go of it. She bends down to you in the freezer, strokes your head, and promises she’ll be back soon.

“I’ll be back soon.”

There’s a whup.

It’s dark.

You’re sitting in the cold.

Synopsis

Taja, a teenager from Berlin, has dropped off the radar. Her four girlfriends eventually find her in her father’s house, coming down from a week-long binge. Her newly dead father is stuffed in the freezer, sitting on a bag of fish with a couple of steaks wedging his head in place.

Whilst trying to wean their friend off the drugs, the girls discover a huge stash of heroin. Sizing this up as the ultimate get-rich-quick opportunity, they decide to sell it to the local teenage pusher. Unfortunately, he is the son of the drug’s rightful owner, who, unsurprisingly, fails to see the funny side of the situation.

What follows is half road movie and half blood bath as the girls attempt to escape through Germany and Denmark to Norway whilst being pursued by a seriously unhappy drug trafficker.

If that isn’t enough, their path collides with Germany’s most prolific serial killer.

Review

In You, Zoran Drvenkar tells the story by spiralling through the different characters’ versions of events. One minute you hear the perspective of a teenage girl, and the next, you take up the tale in the persona of her dead father.

The novel is also written in the second person, hence its title. Drvenkar explains what you did and why you did it. The style is a little disconcerting at first. Particularly when you discover that you are a psychopath slaughtering people with your bare hands — I was disquieted to find I could relate far more easily to the middle-aged serial killer than the teenage girls.

The writing is dark but grimly funny as the characters come to terms with wanton acts of violence.

‘You can’t just shoot my best friend!’ you interrupt the man nobody interrupts, and add softly, ‘It’s not cool.’
‘Of course it’s cool, I’m your father…’

I gave up on the body count when I passed half a dozen characters and fifty bit-players. I suspect a detailed reconciliation would put it into three figures. One every five pages or so, though Zoran does this with a beautiful turn of phrase.

‘Kid, fate is a guy with syphilis and a hard-on, who fucks you in the ass every time you look in the wrong direction. Do you think I’d ever turn my back on fate?’

My only criticism of the book was the serial killer that Drvenkar threw into the mix. Less is more. The story would have been savage enough without him, although, unlike most psychos, he came in handy at the end.

If you are looking for bleak humour that will leave you wondering who the good guys are, this book is worth reading.

Excerpt

You join her and look into the pool. Your mouth drops open.

‘Is that actually real?’

‘It’s realer than real. He’s been working on it for years.’

‘But in a swimming pool?’

You learn that the swimming pool was a present for an athlete who won some sort of medal for breaststroke at an Olympic Games six years ago. The relationship didn’t last long, and when they split up Taja’s father didn’t know what to do with the pool.

‘So he turned it into this.’

The bottom of the swimming pool is covered with dark, rich soil. Sodium lamps hang level with the edge of the pool. You see an irrigation system, fans, and floating above it all is the aeration system. You guess that the pool is twenty feet wide and fifty feet long. The plants grow in neat rows.

‘He grew the seedlings himself. It was his hobby.’

You by Zoran Drvenkar