A masterpiece of Scandinavian and early modernist literature—and with more to come.
The third volume in Undset’s classic tetralogy finds the protagonist’s household riven, and with worse on the way.
Olav Audunssøn, the namesake hero of Undset’s epic, is a psychic mess at the beginning of this volume, the second of whose two parts is meaningfully called “The Wilderness.” A witness to the great transformations of the 13th century, Olav gives the reader plenty of reason to think he should have been a Viking berserker. Instead, he’s doing all he can to be a devout Christian, so when he travels from Norway to England on a trading mission, he goes to church to pray rather than pillage. He is obsessed by his deceased wife, Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter, whose life he complicated by murdering her lover, a story that unfolded in the preceding volume. Olav feels little guilt for the killing but endless remorse for Ingunn’s mortal illness, so much so that when a wealthy English lady casts him come-hither vibes, he flees: “Olav was still holding her, but he was staring and listening to something over her head, as he felt his own desire seeping away, not extinguished but flowing far away from this woman. Ingunn was calling to him.” Ensorcelled by Ingunn’s memory, Olav is full of contempt for their son, Eirik Olavssøn, who wants nothing but his love and approval; the fact that Olav calls him a “wayside bastard” suggests there may be some issues with the genealogy, but then Olav, for all his piety, isn’t above fathering a few off-the-books kids out there on the fjord. Eirik and Olav reach something of a détente, though, just in time for a Swedish upstart to come on the scene attempting to stir up a rebellion against the king, affording Olav a welcome chance to kill a few enemies Viking-style—but at terrible cost. Rich in Catholic symbolism and with plenty of family drama and other mayhem, the book is as sturdy and swift-flowing as any work of Hamsun or Laxness.
A masterpiece of Scandinavian and early modernist literature—and with more to come.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5179-1334-2
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Univ. of Minnesota
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2023
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
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