”The novel opens, as far as I remember, with a song.
It is a song that someone sing together, it comes from outside through a window that is open onto the street.”
Through a series of interiors and exteriors, the prelude to a love affair between two young men is portrayed: A worn down flat from the last turn of the century, a hotel with a ravishing view from all floors, a public park, a discarded tennis court, a bustling open market in a larger city.
In the course of a few days and nights, a funeral, an infatuation, a party and a moving process take place. The story is at the same time detailed and reticent, fragmented and full of reservations. Is it set in autumn, winter or spring? Does the party take place in a flat or a big house?
The Chambermaid is a simple, open and enigmatic novel. Like in the author’s previous novels, the narrator is a nameless outsider – apparently at random, but not without similarities with a classic story.
