Overview
From the acclaimed Icelandic author of Absolution, The Journey Home (now about to start filming under Liv Ullmann’s direction) and Walking into the Night: a haunting collection of thematically linked stories that encompasses the twelve months of a year, capturing the most candid moments between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children–when truths and true feelings surge to the surface and everything changes.
Olaf Olafsson’s fans will recognize the perfect restraint and precision–and quick wit–with which he characteristically explores these dark epiphanies, when the heart is suddenly laid bare, whether by love or betrayal, disenchantment or regret, or the shock of loss. While their settings range from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Paris to Slovenia and Iceland, these contemporary stories probe the complexity of modern relationships over time. A wife realizes her closest confidante is much more than that. A father tries to make his new lover into the image of his late wife. A lusty photographer confronts his own mortality. A couple’s long-anticipated anniversary vacation opens onto the past. A husband, a wife, a child, a boating accident: no harm done . . . and yet?
Each of the twelve stories reveals another element in the agonizing nature of passion, diminished and yet sustained over time. This is a powerful work of fiction from one of our most gifted and subtle international writers at work today.
Synopsis
From the acclaimed Icelandic author of Absolution, The Journey Home (now about to start filming under Liv Ullmann’s direction) and Walking into the Night: a haunting collection of thematically linked stories that encompasses the twelve months of a year, capturing the most candid moments between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children–when truths and true feelings surge to the surface and everything changes.
Olaf Olafsson’s fans will recognize the perfect restraint and precision–and quick wit–with which he characteristically explores these dark epiphanies, when the heart is suddenly laid bare, whether by love or betrayal, disenchantment or regret, or the shock of loss. While their settings range from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Paris to Slovenia and Iceland, these contemporary stories probe the complexity of modern relationships over time. A wife realizes her closest confidante is much more than that. A father tries to make his new lover into the image of his late wife. A lusty photographer confronts his own mortality. A couple’s long-anticipated anniversary vacation opens onto the past. A husband, a wife, a child, a boating accident: no harm done . . . and yet?
Each of the twelve stories reveals another element in the agonizing nature of passion, diminished and yet sustained over time. This is a powerful work of fiction from one of our most gifted and subtle international writers at work today.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
Icelandic émigré novelist Olafsson (Absolution) offers a grim look at chilled middle-aged marriage in 12 stories titled after the months of the year. Olafsson delivers the basic facts of a situation or marriage in a monotonous, uninflected prose that is, in its portentous flatness, utterly compelling. His characters, most hailing from Icelandic stock and thoroughly assimilated into American life, suffer from severely impacted emotion that threatens, when gently triggered, to spew volcanically. Tomas, the bland, typically diffident protagonist of "January," contacts his former live-in girlfriend after 10 years during an overnight flight delay in New York, finding to his shock and dismay that Maureen is sick and probably dying. While he might make amends for his previous emotional cowardice, his instinct is to flee. In "June," a controlling father's disappointment at his daughter's marriage to a gutless American doctor (rather than a firm, outdoorsy Icelander) leads to a weirdly Freudian set of maneuverings by both father and son-in-law. And in several pieces, an old, undisclosed affair resurfaces after decades to haunt a marriage, leading one wife ("August") to mutter upon her husband's revelations of early unfaithfulness: "It was all built on sand." Olafsson's Nordic realism à la Bergman holds a ghastly fascination. (Feb.)
Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Library Journal
Icelandic native Olafsson is the author of three highly regarded novels (e.g., Absolution), each built around tortured expatriate protagonists who leave their native Iceland but continue to be haunted by past crimes or tragedies. His first collection of short fiction continues his interest in examining guilt, passion, and the devastating power of the past. These are spare, elegant stories about failed romantic relationships and lovers broken and defeated by poor judgment, selfishness, and past mistakes. Although some of the stories are predictable (readers will be able to see the comeuppance, shame, or tragic reversal coming), many are quite accomplished. The strongest stories skillfully explore the moral limitations and angst-ridden interior life of their main characters. While the title suggests romance and happy endings, very little here is cheerful. In fact, we see all manner of human weakness, recklessness, and desperation in the name of love. An ambitious, harrowing collection; highly recommended.—Patrick Sullivan