On the water / H.M. van den Brink ; translated from the Dutch by Paul Vincent

A highly acclaimed Dutch work published in seven countries. Anton stands on the banks of the river in Amsterdam in 1944 and remembers the majestic summer he spent on the water with David. The story is told with the past and present flipping back and forth like oars, from the golden, prewar summer in 1939 to the same city five years later, stripped of life by the war.