I have never been faced with a moral crisis, let alone a matter of life or death.
Peter Simons doesn't spend much time at home in his bachelor apartment. Thanks to his job at a multinational company, he is often flying around the world, enjoying a life of luxurious solitude in five-star hotels. So, when he returns after being away for nine months and notices a strange smell coming from his neighbour's apartment, he initially tries not to get involved, but when a body is discovered Peter's carefully cultivated detachment begins to crumble. And when new neighbours move into the vacant apartment he gets caught up in a petty dispute that will bring him to the brink of moral ruin.
Bystander is a pitiless, bold work of intense psychological realism narrated by a professionally successful but socially bankrupt anti-hero who expects global connection and local anonymity. It excoriates the contingency of contemporary morality, and, at a time of growing isolation, forces the reader to examine what it means to be a good neighbour.
