The Apartment

The Apartment, the astonishing first novel by Greg Baxter, is a tale of war and peace, friendship and aloneness. A man walks across an old European capital. Heavy snow falls. He has come here from far away, hoping to forget. Instead, he remembers: home, war, lost friends. Complicity. In the company of a new friend and alive to the new experiences of the city, he moves through the snow and his complicated history in search of an apartment. The Apartment, by the author of the acclaimed memoir A Preparation for Death, is a novel about war, the relationship between America and the rest of the world, and the brittle foundations of Western culture; but above all it is a book about the mysteries and alchemies of friendship - truthful, moving and brilliant. Acclaimed by Hisham Matar, Adam Thorpe and Roddy Doyle, among others, The Apartment is a deeply original and profoundly involving novel. 'Admirable for its scope, ambition and unashamed seriousness of purpose, as well as its willingness to take stylistic and structural risks' Julie Myerson, Observer 'Stunningly good' Susan Jeffreys, Saturday Review, BBC Radio Four 'Baxter's superbly elegant, understated writing explores the dynamics of America's relationship with the rest of the world' The Times 'Lucidly written and astutely observed ... The novel exerts a hypnotic force ... Baxter continually undercuts our expectations for his novel. And it is precisely this sort of subversion, along with the author's shimmering prose, that makes The Apartment such a surprisingly compelling read' New York Times 'Absorbing, atmospheric and enigmatic ... Its long, frigid journey into a long, sleepless night explores a man's uneasy relationship with his past, himself and a world in which violence is inescapable' Los Angeles Times 'Powerful ... Baxter's clean and direct prose generates its own momentum' Daily Beast 'A wonderful, horrible, wise novel' Dazed & Confused (Book of the Month) 'A dark and sinewy novel, written with sparse clarity and affecting subtlety' Stuart Evers, Observer (Books of the Year) Greg Baxter was born in Texas in 1974. He lived for a number of years in Dublin, and now lives in Berlin. He is the author of the acclaimed memoir A Preparation for Death. The Apartment is his first novel.

About the Author :
Greg Baxter was born in Texas in 1974. He lived for a number of years in Dublin, and now lives in Berlin. His memoir, A Preparation for Death, was published in 2010 and acclaimed by Anne Enright, Roy Foster, Hugo Hamilton and David Shields, amongst others.

Review :
Admirable for its scope, ambition and unashamed seriousness of purpose, as well as its willingness to take stylistic and structural risks A wonderful, horrible, wise novel Stunningly good Imagine you're on a roller-coaster ... suddenly, without warning, it tips vertiginously, so quickly that your chest constricts and while you're there, suspended, momentarily, at the apex of this roller-coaster, you're aware suddenly of a kind of clarity, a totally new perspective on everything below. Greg Baxter's The Apartment is a bit like this ... Full of unshowy wisdom and surprising moments of beauty Baxter's superbly elegant, understated writing explores the dynamics of America's relationship with the rest of the world His protagonist is not merely struggling beneath the weight of the violence in his own life story; he grapples with the larger sense of history that infuses the text with an effect that recalls WG Sebald. ... There's a maturity to The Apartment not often found in debut novels. Exceptional - a book rich in ideas and poetry. Its power is accumulative and it moves with a calm and yet inevitable progress. It is a deeply mysterious and admirable book. The Apartment is a small novel - but it's actually huge. Clever, entertaining, brave; it stretches the rules while following a man through one day of his life. I loved it. An interesting, honourable novel The Apartment is a wonderfully beguiling novel, evoking to perfection that sense of eerie possibility one has when in a strange city. Its account of a new friendship poised on the edge of love is superbly sure-footed. Beautiful. Magnificent. Heartbreaking. Greg Baxter is a true original. A stunning book - beautifully constructed, elegantly written and deeply felt The Apartment is a mesmerising story of lostness, friendship and dwelling. Both breathtaking and hauntingly beautiful, Greg Baxter's first novel is as crisp and joyful as freshly fallen snow. A writer of considerable gifts ... Baxter, who now lives in Berlin, is so good at conjuring up the atmosphere of his chilly and crowded city (probably Eastern European and probably fictional) and the character of its inhabitants that you come to feel that you're living there among them in their noisy, bustling cafes and their freezing thoroughfares. ... Baxter shows mastery, too, in his vividly realised characters, especially the charming Saskia A dark and sinewy novel, written with sparse clarity and affecting subtlety