Love - Hardcover

by Tomas Espedal (Author), James Anderson (Translator)

A novel of intersecting historical threads.

Love narrates celebrated Norwegian writer Tomas Espedal's search for death. The decision blossoms within I--the I-person--"like some interior bloom, black and beautiful" on a warm spring day in May, and it is this resolution that fills his self-imposed final year with meaning: Death. It can be so beautiful. One must create this beauty for oneself. One must submit to this naturalness, one must choose it, like pulling the duvet over oneself in bed or jumping off a bridge. But almost immediately life deals I a wildcard: a new love affair brings some of the best days he's ever known and threatens his pact with death. Will he be able to leave Aka and the child she's carrying? He has put an endpoint on his life to intensify experience but is he sure that disappearing from their lives, becoming an absent father, is the best thing for all of them? Set against Espedal's constant reference, the ebb and flow of the seasons, something close to ecstasy propels this most introspective of narratives towards a universal truth.

Author Biography

Tomas Espedal is the author of Tramp, Against Art, Against Nature, Bergeners, and The Year. James Anderson's literary translations from Norwegian include Berlin Poplars by Anne B. Ragde, Nutmeg by Kristin Valla, and several books by Jostein Gaarder.