“Haarlem, the city where you move to when it’s time to let your dreams die,” the poster says.
It is a quote from his book, because the main character David has strong feelings about the provincial town. “These are feelings of hatred,” says Thijs, who is not exactly positive about Haarlem himself.
“In my experience as a teenager, it was a very dull, carefree city, with nothing to do.”
Hoekstra also calls the description of his hometown a bit playful. “At first glance, Haarlem is also a very beautiful, sweet city and everyone thinks so, so it is also funny to have a main character who considers terrorist attacks on this calm happiness.”
Thijs Hoekstra is not the David from his book, he says, but he is. “I never considered calling the main character Thijs Hoekstra, but I did include many elements of my own life in the book.”
Lymph node cancer
For example, David, like Thijs, contracted lymphoma at the age of fourteen. In the middle of his adolescence, in the shadow area between being a child and being an adult, he is in the hospital for a long time.
Hoekstra: “At its core, it is a book about a fourteen-year-old boy with all the problems that come with that age. He longs for real life, because nothing ever happens in Haarlem.”