Emma Cline Examines a Man’s Last Days in New Novel Switzy — See the Cover! (Exclusive)

10 years after the publication of her acclaimed debut novel, The Girls, Emma Cline returns with a book that ponders some of life’s biggest questions.

The author’s next novel, Switzy, will hit shelves this summer from Random House. PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at the cover.

In Switzy, retired executive David Hastings embarks on a personal pilgrimage as he begins to lose his memory. Accompanied by his personal assistant Cody, the two begin a voyage together, including stops in London to see David’s daughter and a trip to France to meet with an estranged friend, before David makes his final stop in Zurich.

As readers stow away on David’s worldwide trip, readers are taken into his mind as he grapples with his memories spanning childhood, losses and mistakes.

Publisher Random House calls the novel “hypnotic and startlingly original,” as it probes “what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he’s relied on, vanish.”

Cline, a recipient of the O’Henry Award, is also the author of the 2023 novel The Guest, as well as the 2020 short story collection Daddy. Across her work, she’s explored characters in various situations and settings, such as a 1960s cult and an alluring summer home on modern day Long Island.

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Switzy presented a new, internal battle to explore through her character, the author explains.

“Assisted dying offers humans the strange gift of knowing exactly when we are to die,” Cline says in a statement shared with PEOPLE. “Let’s say the exit is planned for a certain Tuesday morning at 7 am. How would this knowledge pressurize your remaining days? Your final night, your last meal, your last glimpse of sunlight?”

“I wanted to imagine what it might feel like to spend the last days on earth with the character of David Hastings, especially given his disintegrating mind — what would David cling to, what might fall away?” Cline continues. “So much of the culture we inhabit requires us to pretend that we will never die. How do these illusions and fictions crumble in the face of the fact of our end?”

Cline is the recipient of prestigious accolades like a Guggenheim Fellowship, and has been a finalist for literary awards including the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize and the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize.

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Switzy will be published on Sept. 8 and is now available for preorder, wherever books are sold.