Emma Cline's assured third novel, 'Switzy,' follows David Hastings, a 70-something former C. F. O. confronting early-onset Alzheimer's.

With enough mental reserve and resources, David chooses a luxury assisted suicide at a Dignitas-like organization in Zurich. Before his final appointment, he visits his daughter Rebecca in London, keeping the true nature of his trip secret. Haunted by a youthful homosexual interlude and a 'Lord of the Flies'-like bullying incident with his boarding-school roommate Tom, David seeks to apologize and reckon with an unintegrated truth about himself.

His few adult gay hookups were furtive and anonymous, contrasting with the easy intimacy his young male assistant Cody shares with his boyfriend. Longlisted for the Booker Prize, 'Switzy' is a significant swerve from Cline's earlier female- and youth-centric fiction. The narrative beautifully collates modern detritus—airline miles, mailing envelopes—while exploring themes of mortality, regret, and the absurdity of leaving behind unwashed windows and repainted rooms.

David's memory functions as a scattergram of vivid and blurred thoughts, separated by double spaces, mirroring the holes in a piece of Emmentaler cheese.