Groen’s first novel, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen 83¼ Years Old, by Anonymous (or Hendrik Groen) came out in 2014, and has now been filmed as a TV series for Dutch station NPO which started broadcasting it in Oct. A hit, a very palpable hit The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old (First published by Meulenhoff, The Netherlands, 2014 First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, 2016 this soft cover edition by Penguin Random House UK, 2017, 394 pp.) You might not want to read about this – who would? But you should. He describes it with an auger-like focus that reveals every last intimate, horrible, heart-wrenching detail. Groen’s view of the end of life is humorous but also desperately sad and unnerving. No this is not rude – they do a lot of talking about pooping and peeing in the book. Hendrik (actor Peter de Smet), contemplating life and the problems of digestion in old age. Along with his band of similarly youthful-spirited friends who make up the “Old-But-Not-Dead Club”, they live a life of moderate eventfulness and plentiful very dry humour. Groen, meaning “green” in Dutch, is mentally and physically a sprightly green tree in the aged forest of inhabitants of the old age home. Groen is the pseudonym of a Dutch author who has produced two very popular novels about “his” life in an old age home in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The mystery over who “Hendrik Groen” is, continues.
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