About the book

Canaille doesn’t just stand for bad people, for bad women; Canaille is a plague, a woodworm that slowly eats away at everything. Not least of all the world of art and culture. Love, too, is gnawed at. It eats its way through everything and, over time, brings entire buildings crashing down.

The year is 1967. After the end of his hopeless relationship with top model Loes Hamel, Jan Cremer meets a prima ballerina from the New York City ballet world while in America. She becomes his new great love. Cremer sets himself the task of providing her and their newborn daughter a house of their own. In Cape Cod they briefly manage to lead an idyllic family life that neither of them has known. However, a lack of cash and the allure of other women eventually drive them to his stepparents’ rigid household in Antwerp. There, he finds himself at the mercy of the Canaille. Cremer feels the bond between him and his ballerina slowly dissolve and discovers a side of his lover he did not think he would come to know, one that leads him to the edge of an abyss.