'They go for a walk by the playing fields, the anemones are out.'
They a mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter live in an apartment above a hairdresser's shop in a small island town. Each day is marked by routine and quiet intimacy. They are so enmeshed, so alike in their manners and opinions, it can be hard to tell them apart.
Then the mother begins to feel unwell. They carry on with their lives, talk about anything but the diagnosis. The mother goes in and out of hospital, and the daughter, just starting high school, makes new friends Tove Dunk, Hafni, Bob, Desert Boots but remains essentially alone. Illness, and the possibility of loss, cast a growing shadow over her life.
Writing in a multi-layered, perpetual present tense, Helle Helle finds a tender voice for the comedy and awkwardness of her heroines' lives, rendered into riveting and affecting English by acclaimed translator Martin Aitken. they is an exquisite portrait of the fragile love between a mother and daughter, and a love letter to 1980s life on the island of Lolland, where the author grew up.
Praise for Helle Helle:
'Helle has enchanting gifts as a storyteller...the words so light they nearly float off the page.' New York Times
'One of my favorite Danish writers she's the master.' Olga Ravn, The Guardian
'One of Scandinavia's finest authors.' Dagbladet
'Helle Helle's minimalism isn't boring; it crackles with mystery. It's the everyday, and yet it's insistently beautiful.' Weekendavisen
'You laugh and laugh, cry and cry. Not bawling or sobbing, but quiet and intense. That's what it's like reading Helle Helle.' Politiken
