A Summer of Drowning

Fülszöveg

At a critical point in her career, painter Angelika Rossdal suddenly moves to Kvaloya, a small island deep in the Arctic Circle, to dedicate herself to the solitary pursuit of her craft. With her, she brings her young daughter, Liv, who grows up isolated and unable or unwilling to make friends her own age, spending much of her time alone, or with an elderly neighbour, Kyrre Opdahl, who beguiles her with old folk tales and stories about trolls, mermaids and -crucially for the events that unfold in the summer of her eighteenth year - about the huldra, a wild spirit who appears in the form of an irresistibly beautiful girl, to tempt young men to their catastrophe.
Now twenty-eight, Liv looks back on her life and particularly to that summer when two boys drowned imder mysterious circumstances in the still, moonlit waters off the shores of Kvaloya. Were the deaths accidental, or were the boys, as Kyrre believes, lured to their doom by a malevolent spirit? To begin with, Liv dismisses... Tovább

Fülszöveg

At a critical point in her career, painter Angelika Rossdal suddenly moves to Kvaloya, a small island deep in the Arctic Circle, to dedicate herself to the solitary pursuit of her craft. With her, she brings her young daughter, Liv, who grows up isolated and unable or unwilling to make friends her own age, spending much of her time alone, or with an elderly neighbour, Kyrre Opdahl, who beguiles her with old folk tales and stories about trolls, mermaids and -crucially for the events that unfold in the summer of her eighteenth year - about the huldra, a wild spirit who appears in the form of an irresistibly beautiful girl, to tempt young men to their catastrophe.
Now twenty-eight, Liv looks back on her life and particularly to that summer when two boys drowned imder mysterious circumstances in the still, moonlit waters off the shores of Kvaloya. Were the deaths accidental, or were the boys, as Kyrre believes, lured to their doom by a malevolent spirit? To begin with, Liv dismisses the old man's stories as fantasy, but as the summer continues and events take an even darker turn, she comes to believe that something supernatural is happening on the island. But is it? Or is Liv, a lonely girl who has spent her entire life in the shadow of her beautiful, gifted mother, slowly beginning to lose touch with reality?
Set in the white nights of an Arctic summer, the novel has the heightened, hallucinogenic atmosphere of a dream, but culminates in a moment of profound horror. Intensely imagined and exquisitely written, A Slimmer of Drowning is a play of dark and light, of looking and seeing, that will hold and haunt every reader.
Praise for Glister
'John Burnside's Glister masquerades as an enthraUing murder
mystery but his greater, subtle purpose is to investigate the mysteries of evil, death and eternity, and so provide a work of astounding moral clarity and transcendence.' Jim Grace
'One of the most original and exhilarating reads of the year A work begging an immediate second reading, it is an exceptionally rich treasure which goes beyond telling a disconcerting and disorientating story to illuminate the infinite possibilities of the novel.' Irvine Welsh
'I love John Burnside's writing - one fresh perception, one unexpected observation, driving again and again through to the next, until some entirely unforeseen point or insight can shine forth. You have to be brilliant, wide awake, and wide open to write this way, and Burnside is all three. Glister proves John Burnside is also a master at the creation of dread, tension and mystery. What a dazzling book this is.' Peter Straub Vissza