A Blessed Child, by Linn Ullmann

December 13, 2010 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: book review, Fiction, Linn Ullman, Norwegian writer 

In this book, Norwegian author Linn Ullmann explores themes like guilt, reconciliation, and the passing of years on memory in a novel that is powerfully driven by raw sensuality and violence. It is a book that makes a strong impression.

The novel tells the tale of three sisters and their fragile relationship to their father.A Blessed Child too starts with Erika nervously driving through a snowstorm to the Swedish A Blessed Child by Linn Ullmann island of Hammarso to visit her 84-year-old father, Isak, a volatile and aloof genius. Then, there is a spectacular event: In the summer of 1979, something terrible happens on the beautiful, weather-beaten island of Hammarsö in the Baltic. Each year, the half-sisters Erika, Laura and Molly have spent the summer there with their temperamental father, Isak Lövenstad.

Over time, the three young girls enter into changing alliances with other summer guests. One of these is Ragnar, the boy who is always running and who in some strange way is attracted to Isak.

No one assumes responsibility for what happens that summer, and more than twenty five years are to pass before the sisters return to the island – this time to visit their old father.

A Blessed Child is a rich portrayal of the life-stories of three women, and also a fine portrait of a father – both merciless and tender. It’s a story of girls that behave bad! Very bad indeed. It’s structure is mosaic and very appropriate. Linn Ullmann is a terrific writer. Her novel’s great strengths are the brilliantly drawn characters and the dialogues. A Blessed Child is a great book!

“A deeply disturbing and powerful novel with parallels to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies … Ullmann’s pen offers a sober narrative, never too sentimental or obvious, keeps us enthralled with hints, pulls us into the core from many different angles … merciless and credible” – ALF KJETIL WALGERMO, VÅRT LAND (Norway)

Read more about Linn Ullmann as well as book reviews of her books. See also an interview with Linn Ullmann here!

Links to Linn Ullmann’s books at amazon US and at amazon UK.

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Grace, by Linn Ullmann

November 1, 2008 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: book review, Fiction, Johan Sletten, Linn Ullman, Norwegian writer 

The Norwegian author Linn Karin Beate Ullmann (born 1966) is the daughter of Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman. She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature and also began work on her Ph.D. She returned to Norway in 1990 to pursue a career in journalism. She is married to Niels Fredrik Dahl, an award-winning Norwegian poet, novelist and playwright

Her third novel Grace was published in 2002 and won the prominent literary award “The reader’s prize” in Norway, and was named one of the ten best novels of that year by the prestigious newspaper “Weekendavisen” in Denmark.
In 2007, Grace was long listed for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK.

Grace tells the story of Johan Sletten, a man whose life has not been the Grace, by Linn Ullmann greatest success story: an unhappy first marriage, an estranged son, and an undistinguished career as a journalist. An ordinary life, like most lives. However, his second wife, Mai, has graced his life with love.

When told that he is terminally ill, with possibly only a few months left to him, Johan makes Mai promise to help him die “when the time comes”. But is this the true measure of love – to give the gift of death? And who decides when the time is right? Johan himself or his wife Mai? Death may come as a release, but to whom?

Linn Ullmann’s novel Grace portrays a passionate love affair and asks difficult questions about life, love and death. With cool precision, deep insight, and dark wit, it illustrates how the most ordinary of lifes can, in the end, be touched by grace.

Praise for Linn Ullmann’s Grace:

“Linn Ullmann masterfully manages to fill even the spaces between the lines. With only a small number of flashbacks and events making the text a convincing story, she succeeds in creating an incredibly dense and intense atmosphere. Tension builds, leaving the reader almost breathless, even though nothing really happens. Yet something does take place. The reader feels the spark.You are drawn in by the tension between the two spouses: their anxiety, their insecurity and their hopes. The stirring and dramatic ending of Linn Ullmann’s empathetic novel Grace is surprising.”

NDR (Germany)

See also author page on Linn Ullmann at leserglede.com.

Order books by Linn Ullmann from amazon US: Grace: A Novel or A Blessed Child.
Order from amazon UK: Grace or A Blessed Child.

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