THE ASSAULT by Harry Mulisch

Translated by Claire Nicolas White

I first read The Assault back when I was an impressionable student figuring his way through the post-War literature of Nazi-collaborating countries. Mulisch is a particularly interesting writer in that regard - his father worked for a bank that confiscated Jewish assets. His mother was Jewish. Needless to say, he came out of it with a singularly complex worldview. The Assault might well be considered a reckoning with his identity.

Anton is only twelve when the Dutch chief of police - a monster by all accounts - is shot dead outside his neighbour’s house. Anton watches in horror as the neighbour moves the body to his lawn just before the cavalry arrive. His family is arrested, his house burned down in reprisal. His parents and brother are shot. The book follows Anton through the subsequent years - into old age - as he pieces together what actually happened that night. Each piece of the puzzle is more morally challenging and heartbreaking than the one that came before. Even knowing the end, my jaw still dropped to the floor.

Based on a true event, The Assault wrestles with questions of complicity, resistance and culpability better than any other book I’ve read.

The Assault by Harry Mulisch (Tr. Claire Nicolas White)
Pantheon Books, 1985
196 pages