Intimacies: A Novel

I was annoyed with this book at first because of the punctuation! Lots of run-on sentences with a comma thrown in here and there for fun.
Anyway, once I got past that and settled into the story, I really enjoyed it. The narrator is an interpreter working at The Hague, working on a very high-profile case of a deposed president of an unnamed African country, now being tried for chilling crimes against his own citizens.
In the interpreter's personal life, she's been trying to find her way since moving to The Hague. She's in a relationship with a man going through a divorce but she feels suddenly like she doesn't know where she stands with him. Her few friendships are starting to feel shaky too.
Meanwhile, the president has taken note of her and has requested her personally to interpret for him. She loathes this man and everything he represents, until he turns a mirror on her, and asks who is she to judge.
You could say this is a book where not much happens, but it's all about what lies beneath, and how we see ourselves in the world.

I probably shouldn’t even write a review as I absolutely could not finish this book! So here’s a snippet of a review from the Chicago Review of Books that encompasses the bitter taste my short time with this novel left in my mouth: “… while Kitamura’s use of tone, temporality, and narrative can be striking, the novel itself… comes across too heavy-handed at times, bordering on affected.” That being said, all art should do is make you feel something, and this novel definitely did that!

Definitely an interesting journey. Loved reading about The Hague, both the place and the Court. The narrator's interior life and interest in art were compelling. I also enjoyed and the strange little interactions between acquaintances.