"I must ask myself whether I am not colouring what I see with my own views."

Holm leaves enough space in the text that his narrator's self-query is relevant to the reader, also. It's a book of impressions, partially understood events and delirium, that, coloured by my own views, perhaps, seems like a metaphor for late stage capitalism. The rich provide themselves with a haven from social collapse, leave the poor to suffer, and start to splinter into authoritarian factions. There is an obvious violence inherent in this, which does manifest itself in the narrative, but the atmosphere is rather that of a dream or a state of increasing dissociation and withdrawal. ( )

For a book written in 1967 I felt that it was quite timeless, we have a nameless narrator that narrate to us his experience in the Termush, a kind of hotel with a bunker bellow, the world has fallen victim to a radiative fallout, but as our narrator starts to tell us the story radiation levels are almost normal, but is it really like that? The management of the hotel are like a very authoritative government where the people (guest) can’t really change the outcome of the things… Soon enough there’s a threat that comes from the unknown, the people that survived the fallout… and to know more I advice you all to get a copy and see for yourself.

I did like this Novella, I did like to learn things with our main character, what I didn’t like that much, was the ending, I felt it was rushed and ended in a cliffhanger, but without a continuation that is pointless… for me it is a solid 3,4 stars, is still worth reading.

Thank you NetGalley and Faber and Faber Ltd for the free ARC and this is my honest opinion. ( )