Switzy A Novel

We live in a time ruled by overpowered and undersocialised wealthy boy kings; Emma Cline s mordant novel considers what, if anything, remains at the end of one such luxurious yet lonely life. David is a retired American business executive with dementia who decides to be euthanised in a Swiss clinic. As he voyages across Europe, fuzzy memories from his life slip in and out of his consciousness. There are final gestures towards intimacy with family and friends, and a whimsical cartoon becomes a symbol of a bygone childhood. What makes a life? Cline writes vividly about the trappings of the elite the private jets, the heirloom watches, all that time spent in the office as well as their sad social cost in a story that feels immersive, elegiac, and very real. As one of us put it: I travel a lot, and know these guys. 2026 Booker Prize judges

Praise for Emma Cline

Under [Emma] Cline s command, every sentence [is] as sharp as a scalpel. The New York Times

Cline sees the world exactly and generously. On every other page, it seems, there is something remarkable. The New Yorker

One of the boldest, most complicated writers working today. San Francisco Chronicle

Cline is a master of depicting the nefarious and atmospheric menace that often lurks adjacent to our most glittery environments. Vogue

Cline s fiction is full of binaries pressing up against one another; youthful promise and life s realities; success and failure; darkness and humor. The Wall Street Journal

One of the best and most discomfiting young writers working today. Entertainment Weekly