The Long Farewell- Part one - 2025
The Long Farewell is the winner of a Literary Titan Gold Book Award 2025
The Long Farewell is a 2025 American Writing Award Finalist in the category Historical Fiction
"The Long Farewell" is a Literary Global Book Awards 2025 Finalist.
A young man with an Oedipus complex in 1930s Dresden, Hermann Becht, loses himself in the social and political motives of his time.
His father is in the SS, his mother is Belarusian, and his girlfriend is Jewish. After a brutal clash with his father, Hermann and his mother flee to Paris. Swept along by a maelstrom of events, Hermann ends up as a spy for the British in the Polish extermination camp Treblinka.
The trauma of what he sees in this realm of death intensifies his pessimistic outlook on humanity. In Switzerland, the famous psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung tries to free Hermann of his frightening schizophrenia, but fails to unravel the power of the young man's emotions, especially his intense hate for his father.
What follows is a tragic chain of events, leading to Hermann's ultimate revenge on his father: the apocalyptic bombing of Dresden.
THE LONG FAREWELL is an unforgettable exploration of fascism's lure and the roots of the Holocaust. More than ever, the novel is a mirror for our modern times.
REVIEWS
I discovered Bob Van Laerhoven, a Belgian author, and his books several years ago, and I have read many of his novels and short stories that have been translated into English, and always enjoyed them, although “enjoy” is not the right word. Because this author always chooses dark and morally complex and ambiguous subjects, hard to write about and not easy to read either. His novels are a combination of beautiful and compelling writing with profoundly dark subjects that dig deep into the human soul. And this novel is not an exception.
The description above covers the main facts of the plot. This is a novel set in a historical period of turmoil, where we follow a young boy, Hermann Becht, growing up in Dresden, at the time of Hitler’s rise to power. His loving father becomes an eager follower of Hitler, ready to do anything, including betraying superiors and family, to go up the ladder and end up in the SS. His mother, a Belarusian with a traumatic and shady past, sees her husband become a stranger and her own identity questioned, and decides to leave, after a confrontation between her husband and her son that makes her afraid for what might happen next.
Hermann witnesses terrible things all around him, some real and some not, and he finds it more and more difficult to tell the difference. Having lived in Paris, London, after losing his mother and discovering that his uncle is not the person he thought, he does not feel he belongs anywhere, and he feels empty. He tries to fill his void by becoming an artist, and he ends up getting involved in the British Secret Service more by chance than by will.
Hermann’s story goes beyond the typical coming-of-age tale, as his experiences in some way move in parallel and mirror (perhaps using a distorting mirror) the history of Germany and the world at the time. He is a witness to some momentous events, to the point of meeting Hitler in extraordinary circumstances, visiting Treblinka right at the moment when the prisoners of the camp revolted, or being the subject of Carl Jung’s analysis in Berne.
His demons, which he does not fully acknowledge until it is very late, are very similar to those that seem to be behind much of what is wrong with the world, at the time and nowadays. The bombing of Dresden, a historical episode that has been the subject of much controversy (a necessary part of the allied campaign to put an end to the war in Europe, or a war crime, depending on the sources one consults), becomes a symbol and an embodiment of the destructive power of hatred and of the demons of the collective unconscious, of the shadow that most of us fail to acknowledge and never want to analyze or look at too deeply, because it is scary and ugly. But, it is a part of us, and ignoring it causes more harm than good.
The writing is superb, as usual, and combines the beauty of the descriptions and the images the language creates, with the horror of some of the events Hermann witnesses. The story is narrated in the third person, mostly from Hermann’s point of view, but there are also moments when we follow other characters or see things from their perspective, and that gives us a clearer perspective. Although those changes of perspective can take place within the same chapter, and more than once, they are not confusing or difficult to follow, so readers do not need to worry about that. The writing is highly symbolic, and this is not an easy read or a page-turner in the usual sense, but a book that requires attention, concentration, and can be challenging at times, although the rewards are high.
This is not a book for everybody, and it comes with a warning, as there is much violence and very dark and cruel subjects are touched upon. My recommendation remains the same I made for the first book by Van Laerhoven I read: if you’re looking for a complex and challenging historical novel and don't shrink from dark subjects, this is a pretty unique book.
Olga Miret - GoodReads - Five stars
Honey, The Long Farewell is one of those books that doesn’t politely ask for your attention. It takes it. And it keeps it. From the first pages, you can feel the air in it—cold, tense, full of the kind of fear people pretend they don’t have until it’s too late. Bob Van Laerhoven writes with a steady hand, and he’s not trying to charm you. He’s trying to show you what it looks like when a person gets shaped by a cruel time, a cruel home, and a cruel country, and then turns around and makes choices he can never scrub off.
Hermann Becht is not a hero you can hug up to your chest. Lord, no. He’s a young man twisted up in longing, shame, and anger, and the way his family is drawn makes you understand why he’s so split down the middle. A father tied to the SS—hard, proud, and dangerous. A mother with her own secrets and scars. And a Jewish girlfriend who brings love into the story, yes, but also danger, because in that world love isn’t safe. Not for her, not for him, not for anybody. Every relationship in this book feels like it’s sitting on a powder keg.
The author doesn’t write history like wallpaper. He writes it like weather, pressing in on the characters, changing what they can do, what they can say, how they breathe. You can see how fascism seduces people: not always with speeches and flags, but with belonging, with permission, with the promise that your bitterness means something. And that right there is what makes this novel sting. It isn’t pointing at monsters and saying, Look how different they are from you. It’s showing you the ordinary cracks where the rot gets in.
Now listen. This is not a cozy read. It’s not “historical fiction with a little romance and a lesson.” This is the kind of book you finish and you feel wrung out—like you’ve been gripping something too tight for too long. But it’s also the kind of book that feels important, because it doesn’t let you soften the past into something palatable. It shows you how ideology and trauma and private obsession can braid together into catastrophe.
If you pick up The Long Farewell, go in knowing it’s heavy. But also know it’s skillful, fearless, and sharp as a needle. It’s the sort of novel that leaves you quiet afterward, staring at the wall a minute, thinking about how quickly a person can be pulled under—by family, by fear, by the hunger to belong, by the desire to hurt back.
That’s a powerful book, sugar. Not pretty. Not gentle. But powerful.
Dragonfly Reads- GoodReads - Five stars
This is the kind of book you finish and just sit there for a minute, staring at the wall like your brain needs to reboot.
The Long Farewell starts with a tense, messy situation in pre-war Dresden and then keeps pushing its main character into choices that never feel clean or “movie heroic.” Hermann is stuck between loyalties and identities that don’t fit neatly together, and that friction is what makes the story hit. The writing doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and it doesn’t try to make the darkness feel “artful” either—it’s blunt in a way that kept me turning pages even when I wanted to look away. I also liked that it doesn’t treat fascism like a monster that appears out of nowhere. It shows how it seeps into families, romance, everyday conversations, and how quickly “normal” can start shifting. The espionage thread adds tension, but the real weight is the atmosphere: paranoia, loss, and the sense that the world is rearranging itself around cruelty.
Not an easy read, but a powerful one. I’m glad I picked it up, and I won’t forget it anytime soon.
Anna Miller –Goodreads – Five stars
The Long Farewell is the kind of historical novel that doesn’t ease you in. It starts with a tense, combustible family situation in 1930s Dresden and keeps tightening the screws until the story is operating at the level of survival, secrecy, and moral damage. Hermann is a fascinating main character because he isn’t built for heroics—he’s built from contradictions, and the book keeps testing which part of him will win in each scene.
The momentum worked well: the shifts in setting (Dresden, Paris, then far darker places) don’t feel like a travelogue, they feel like doors slamming shut behind him. The espionage angle adds urgency, but the emotional core stays personal—love, fear, loyalty, and the way ideology invades private life. This is not a comfort read, and it shouldn’t be. It’s sometimes suffocating, and deliberately sharp about the seduction of fascism and the cost of looking away.
If you like historical fiction that takes risks and leaves bruises, this one delivers. If you want a gentler WWII-era story with a softer landing, this probably isn’t it.
Marianne Williams - Goodreads – Five stars
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