The deviation - Dries Muus

Dries Muus's Deviation is an extraordinarily original coming-of-age novel. Just before fourteen-year-old Mattias Groen steps onto the football field at his new club, he makes an appointment with the gods. In exchange for a future as a professional football player, they can do anything to him. It works: Matty wins a starting spot, continues to score and there is even interest from abroad.

Then a dressing room scandal turns his life upside down. The world comes crashing down on him, Matty's mother and his trainer don't get through to him anymore, and his fight brings out their own suppressed grief as well. As they continue to try to drag the boy through the misery, they imperceptibly push him closer to the abyss with each attempt.

The Anomaly is a powerful psychological novel: a very much alive triple portrait of a torn boy, a broken mother and a trainer with a secret. A compelling story about public humiliation and personal taboos, about dark ways out of downward spirals.

'A cult about what it's like to be a man.' – Pieter van der Wielen, presenter Never sleep again.

So Muus knows what he is talking about, and you can feel it from the first to the last page. He describes with verve the emotional world of the young player who slowly sinks into a swamp of uncertainty, self-loathing and unrequited pressure to perform. […] In The Deviation, football is the common thread along which Matty's struggles with his sexuality slowly unfold. But it is unclear to the reader in the early chapters whether Matty is actually gay – just as unclear as it is to Matty himself.” – The Correspondent