Martijn Knol

Martijn Knol

Anything Can Break

'Alles kan kapot' (Anything Can Break) moves between Arnhem, Germany, Vienna, Lesbos and New York and spans three generations in the life of a family. Starting in the present, we accompany the characters on a journey ever deeper into the past, witnessing the events that shaped them. The book ends in 1945, when Grandfather Ambrosius decides to make a fresh start and say nothing about the violence he saw and endured as a factory worker in southern Germany during the war. By that point, we know that this man will later damage his yet unborn daughter Merel, dooming her to a lifetime of silence and isolation. And even before that, at the start of the story in 2011, we have learned how Merel’s experiences influenced her children; the sensitive Jonathan, who has no idea how to cope with his mother’s pain, and the resilient Serafine, who learns to express herself through art.