The Dresser
Thorvald Steen
Original title: Påklederen
Publisher: Forlaget Oktober , 2023
Genre: Novel
Pages: 192 pages
Intense chamber drama about betrayal and sin
The year is 1204. Massimo Gasparino was once the most trusted aide to the Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, but he has now been demoted to a dresser and is being held captive by the Doge in an apartment in Constantinople.
Gasparino writes a secret letter to Pope Innocent III in which he professes that he’s witnessed the most egregious crime in human history: the Fourth Crusade to Jerusalem has deliberately been redirected to Constantinople. The city is plundered and the loot transported to Venice. Gasparino writes about the vast extent of the betrayal and the sin, depicting one of the greatest disasters in Christian Europe.
The Dresser is an ambitious novel about betrayal and sin, and about a war that continues to cast shadows over modern-day conflicts.
Steen writes precisely and exceptionally wisely – and with a hint of humour and beauty. He plays with the novel genre, storytelling, and the epistolary form with mastery and elegance. The Dresser is an intense and heartfelt chamber drama about vanity and overzealous ambition, about powerlessness and guilt.
The Dresser has received glowing reviews and been listed among the best books of 2023 by several critics.
Foreign rights
Swedish: Heidruns Förlag
World English: Seagull Books