Summary

In Chapters 1 and 2 a grown narrator tells the story of her abusive childhood in Rotterdam, Netherlands. Later in the novel readers learn the narrator’s name: Leigh. She recounts the feeling of growing up in an artificial city, built on land “claimed from the seafloor” (3). From the beginning of the novel, Leigh explains her childhood as one filled with violence and beauty. She lives with her younger sister, Helena, her mother Fenna, a mathematician, and Geert, her father. Geert wanted only to be an architect but failed his exams. After this event, he went to sea like his father, but came home for good after meeting and falling in love with Fenna. Geert works as a Waterschappen, an engineer whose job it is to make sure the city doesn’t sink or flood. Leigh says he beats his children, focusing on her...