'Get ready to fall in love with De Vries's playful pen and unrelenting view of mankind. Surrender on Demand is gorgeous and strange and somehow familiarly human, Dickens in a sharp modern jacket.' --Yael van der Wouden, Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Safekeep

A biting tale about class and destiny from the Netherlands--told through an endearing antihero named Shellfish.

We all went to the same school, which was referred to as a “special” school. Not because we were special ourselves but because the system had deemed us useless . . . In other words, we were being prepared for a life of service. In that respect, we suffered a similar fate. And I detest fate.

Shellfish grows up in a coastal village polluted by the local steel plant. The factory or the distribution center: these are the choices ahead. Both are work in places without windows, dictated by the clock. But Shellfish dreams of a different future: to no longer serve, but be a master.

Will Shellfish succeed in breaking free? If we cannot outgrow the circumstances we were born in, does that mean we’ve failed at life? Surrender on Demand is about the difference between people who get to choose their future and those who have to suffer their fate. About villagers and day-trippers. About casual violence. And about seagulls. A carnivalesque, satirical, intense, big, small novel about class and destiny.