Miss Iceland

Opportunities for women in Iceland in the early 1960s are so limited as to be nonexistent. There is the traditional path of motherhood, or, if one is particularly lovely, there is the omnipresent pressure to compete for the title of the nation's ultimate beauty queen, Miss Iceland. Hekla, already a published author and poet, wants to follow neither of these paths and so decamps for the big city of Reykjavik, where she lives with her best friend, Jon, a gay man whose life choices are even more restricted. Hekla lives to write, yet when she falls in love with the local librarian, also an aspiring poet, she finds herself increasingly subjected to the traditional roles of cook, decorator, and all-around helpmeet. When she and Jon decide to escape their prescribed existence, they marry so as to provide the safest cover for their twin journeys of discovery. As elegantly cold and foreboding as the Icelandic landscape itself, Olafsdottir's languid and melancholy portrait of a writer with a singular passion demonstrates the sacrifices women have always made for their art.

Ólafsdóttir's graceful and quiet tale of feminism, alienation, and artistic expression (after Hotel Silence) centers around Hekla, a young Icelandic woman who wants to become a writer in a male-dominated literary world. In 1963, Hekla leaves rural Dalir on a coach bound for Reykjavik, reading Ulysses and writing in her notebook. Upon her arrival, a man tries to recruit her to join the Miss Iceland competition; she refuses, and also keeps her literary aspirations to herself. Hekla waitresses at Hotel Borg during the day, where the beauty pageant recruiter reappears and continues to pressure her, and writes at night in an apartment she shares with her gay best friend, Jón John, a fisherman. Hekla's kinship with Jón John grows from their shared feelings of alienation: hers from the Reykjavik poet café crowd and his from the masculine atmosphere on a recent trawler expedition. She visits another friend, Ísey, who writes obsessively in her diary and struggles with being a full-time housewife and mother. After a romance with a poet is spoiled by his jealousy over her talent, Hekla turns to her friends to envision a future of fulfillment. Ólafsdóttir tenderly explores how these authentic characters help each other overcome their fears and doubts. This winning tale of friendship and self-fulfillment will inspire readers. (June)

After saying good-bye to her father and her small town, Hekla travels to Reykjavík to find a job; live with her best friend, Jón John, who is gay; and write as much as possible. But Iceland in the 1960s is not receptive to women writers. Apart from working as a waitress and fending off the aggressive advances of male customers, her only options are to compete for the Miss Iceland title or to marry and have children like her childhood friend Ísey. In her sixth novel, award-winning author Ólafsdóttir (Hotel Silence) paints a vivid portrait of Iceland: cold weather, volcanic eruptions, northern lights, whale hunting, darkness, sexism, and homophobia. Hekla, who is named after a volcano, perseveres with help from Jón John, her father, and Ísey, even if an affair with a poet ends when he discovers that she is the better writer. For Hekla and Jón John to survive, they must leave. VERDICT In this excellent introduction to her work, Ólafsdóttir creates a world where either escape or hiding one's true nature are the only choices. [See Prepub Alert, 12/2/19.]--Jacqueline Snider, Toronto