Book review: On the Bright Side (Hendrik Groen)

**** / *****

After having adored the first “diary” by Hendrik Groen, I was excited to find out what the now 85-year-old had been up to. Although perhaps unsurprisingly a little bleaker in tone, the writing still feels searingly true to life. There is love and loss of all kinds in the second year Groen documents. There are of course more outings for the Old-But-Not-Dead Club, progressing to restaurant gatherings and even a trip abroad. For a time of life that can be extremely lonely for far too many people, Groen absolutely has it made, living as he does in the home with his friends, fighting the Director by re-forming a residents’ committee. There are new characters and dramas in the home. We learn a little more about Henk’s long life. Drawn out from memory almost casually is the death of his young daughter – not in a sensationalist way, since it is likely more than fifty years – but rationally, with acceptance. I am not sure exactly who Hendrik’s target audience is, but I recommend his diaries to all. He professes a desire to write his first novel “next year” – actually 2016 (this second book was published in his native Netherlands in January of that year). I understand via Google Translate on a Dutch publishing news site that the novel will indeed be published in 2018. I hope for an English translation soon after.

On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is published on January 11th by Michael Joseph (Penguin UK)