Switzy by Emma Cline- Booker Prize Finalist 2026

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest comes a mesmerizing portrait of an aging man’s last pilgrimage.

A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself—but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting.

A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable.

What David knows is this: his assistant, Cody, will shepherd him through the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades. His final destination is Zurich.

As David glides through hotel rooms and foreign cities, his grasp on the present slips, and the past rushes in. The Sunday roasts of childhood. Stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life.

What emerges is an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unraveling mind—darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments, compromises, and illusions that defined him quietly vanish.

This is a book to linger over. Settle in by the window, let the sea air drift past, and lose yourself in these pages.

Stop by and see us on your next walk along the cove—we’d love to place this one in your hands.

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