Review by Booklist Review
This exceptionally sharp collection of short stories by Norwegian writer Øyehaug transforms everyday human encounters into moments of surreal beauty, punctuated by funny, simple, observational humor. In the first of her books to be translated into English, many of the stories at first seem oddly mundane, from a husband's hilarious, awkward encounter at an IKEA in Nice and Mild to the acutely rendered anxiety a child feels anticipating a piano recital in Overtures. The collection is full of unexpected openings (Arild Eivind Bryn was a demon at selling encyclopedias) and inventive forms (An Entire Family Disappears is composed entirely in stage directions). A Renowned Engineer offers a reflective, compact biography of volatile French poet Arthur Rimbaud. Øyehaug's stories achieve a unique duality difficult to achieve in short fiction: they are witty and profound, impactful and fleeting, instantaneous and perpetual. In their quirky idiosyncrasies, Øyehaug's stories resemble Enrique Vila-Matas' Vampire in Love (2016) and Claire-Louise Bennett's Pond (2016). A powerful, often-poetic collection of remarkable short fiction.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Norwegian writer Oyehaug's newly translated collection charts entanglements of all kinds, from difficult families and first loves to more metaphysical experiments that combine a crisp minimalism with endearingly offbeat conceits. "Small Knot," for instance, literalizes a fraught mother-son relationship with an umbilical cord that remains intact well into the son's adult life-and even after the mother's death-while a lonely woman longing for more encounters a UFO in "Vitalie Meets an Officer." The best of Oyehaug's miniatures deal with elusive emotional states, like the confession of love for a terminally ill man in "It's Raining In Love," the jealousy experienced by the friends of a highly successful encyclopedia salesman in "Echo," or the contemplative ecstasy of a woman named Edel whom, in "Two by Two," thinks that "nature has been abandoned and we are to blame, we have focused on language and become complicated." Oyehaug transfigures a trip to IKEA, a late-night bathroom break, the lonely vigil of an egg and prawn vendor. Other stories read like surreal drawing room plays, offering a glimpse at the private lives of Arthur Rimbaud and Maurice Blanchot. "Meanwhile, on Another Planet" concludes "What can we learn from this? That impossible situations can arise on other planets too." This kind of dry, odd, understated humor comes to seem a hallmark of Oyehaug, whose stories are as original as they are joyously delicate and tranquil. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Formally playful, poignant, understated, and often acutely funny, yehaug's English-language debut teems with humanity.In this collection of shortand short-shortstories, fluidly translated from the Norwegian by Dickson, yehaug swipes a deft finger through messy layers of human experience and inspects with a keen and generous eye the everyday tragedies, tender absurdities, and quiet joys of life. In the book's spectacular opener, "Nice and Mild," a man paralyzed by anxiety and indecision heads to IKEA for blinds for his son's room. As he talks himself out of the car, across the parking lot, and into the store, he thinks "this could be the start of a virtuous circle," the first step toward a new proactive self, the blinds "a lifeline that's been thrown to me from dry land as I flail and flounder in the waves." In "Small Knot," a son is tethered to his mother for life, and beyond, by an uncuttable umbilical cord in a delightfully morbid and literal rendering of familial bonds and their reverberations through the future. In "Deal," a girl's bicycle breaks shortly after she sets out to run away, and she misses the last ferry out of town. Stranded, she strikes a curious deal with a neighbor who has rescued her and is in need of a little rescuing himself. "Gold Pattern" is a melancholy in-coitus account of a vaguely coupled pair with intermittent and unequal passions, a heart-pricking tale of progressive loss and longing. And in "An Entire Family Disappears," a grand-uncle rattles his family at a funeral by telling a tale of how easily they might not have come to exist, told in dramatic form with the story unfolding entirely in stage directions. A near-perfect collection about the knots we tie ourselves into and the countless ways we intertwine in the pursuit of sex, love, compassion, and family. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
