Daniel, a forty-year-old Swedish journalist who has been trying for many years to write the novel of his life, hears of the death of his mother with whom he has long been out of touch and returns home, to Paris, to finally put his life in order. The two weeks spent in France mark a breakthrough for Daniel. The fever state of the title, of the kind that comes over us before a journey, acquires an existential dimension in Łoziński. Wandering the streets of his childhood city, Daniel takes a painful trip into the depths of his memory and soul. He goes in search of answers to the questions that haunt him: who he really is, who his mother was, and most importantly, what to do with the rest of his life. A master of subtle psychological portraiture, Łoziński does not, of course, give him easy solutions and answers. Yet the emotional and existential turbulence that shakes him during this brief journey will leave an indelible mark on the rest of his life. This intimate, compelling, and dense psychological study of a man caught in complex family relations from which he can only be painfully untangled.

“This novel is remarkably mature in its composition and in the human problems it addresses. Written with great psychological finesse and sensitivity to show the drama of misunderstanding those closest to us, this book is one of the most original works in new Polish literature”.

From the justification of the Kościelski Prize jury

“A surprisingly mature debut by this twenty-five-year-old writer. A novel with the mood of Bergman about the search for truth – about the writer’s loved ones and himself. He masterfully sketches psychological portraits of a mature man and his aging mother. Nominated for the Nike Award 2007”.

Marek Radziwon, Culture.pl

“For a debut, this young author’s prose is surprisingly mature and technically refined. I would even hazard the statement that this is the most promising entrée onto our literary scene since Dorota Masłowska’s Snow White and Russian Red. Łoziński’s prose is subdued and intimate, as it were; there are no hyped controversial themes from the newspaper headlines or stylistic extravagances. Skillfully building the suspense, the author reveals one layer of a family drama at a time, focusing on the protagonists’ experiences and emotions, subtly shading his psychological portraits”.

Robert Ostaszewski, Gazeta Wyborcza

“This is an example of psychological prose based on some brilliantly drawn characters […] Łoziński skillfully shows the vacuum left behind by the loss of a loved one… and the difficult relationships between people close to one another. [This is] dense prose, linguistically excellent, that keeps adding to the suspense; it has a beautiful and intimate mood, never raising its voice. Łoziński does not shock us with a single sentence”.

Paweł Urbaniak, Twórczość