Bram Vermeulen - Enkele reis moeder (02-037)

He used to be half of a comic duo that revolutionised Dutch cabaret. He was the musical one, his mate went on to become even bigger as a comedian after going solo. He had given up his career as a volleyball player (he made the national team), but didn't have anything in the early eighties after they had broken up. He continued making music, occasionally scoring a small hit, even rarer the occasion he did something really good. In the nineties he made some great cd's. He started going back into the theatres, he got credibility. But never again did he see the popularity he had in the seventies.

Now he wrote a book, "one way mother". It is about a man in his fifties in the train on his way to his mother. 12 chapters, over half start with the same sentence. "Sitting in the train, the noise of iron on iron...". What goes on in the mind of this man, that's all there is to the book. Nothing spectacular, but still interesting. The reader can easily imagine all thoughts, all situations. Good thing is that after a while, you do not know anymore if he is describing what he seas, imagining what could happen or just plain fantasising. And that's what makes the story addicitive. If you don't know Vermeulen, it may all seem a lot of vague rambling, but if you really try to get into the story, this book is very enjoyable.