A Fist or a Heart

Description

The past returns with a fury for a woman coming to terms with her life in this award-winning novel by an acclaimed Icelandic author making her English-language debut. Elin Jonsdottir lives an isolated existence in Reykjavik, Iceland, making props and prosthetics for theatrical productions and Nordic crime flicks. In her early seventies, she has recently become fascinated with another loner, Ellen Alfsdottir, a sensitive young playwright and illegitimate daughter of a famous writer. The girl has aroused maternal feelings in Elin, but she has also stirred discomfiting memories long packed away. Because their paths have crossed before. One doesn't remember. The other is about to forget. Soon they'll discover all they have in common: difficult childhoods, trauma, and being outliers who have found space to breathe in creative expression. Yet the more Elin tries to connect with the young woman and unbox painful memories, the more tenuous her grasp on reality becomes. Winner of the Icelandic Literary Prize, A Fist or a Heart is a gripping, artfully interwoven novel of power, secrets, and isolation by one of the most bracing and original voices of the author's generation.

Kristin Eiriksdottir is an award-winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and playwright from Reykjavik, Iceland. Her original edition of A Fist or a Heart won the Icelandic Literary Prize 2017 as well as the Icelandic Women's Literature Prize 2018, and was nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize 2019. The novel took second place for the Icelandic Booksellers' Prize and was selected as one of the best novels of 2017 by the Icelandic National Radio. Eiriksdottir has published seven books and had three plays staged. Her short fiction has appeared in Best European Fiction 2011. A Fist or a Heart is her first novel to be translated into English.

"Atmospheric, disorienting...A dreamlike meditation on isolation and the bone-aching desire for companionship." -Kirkus Reviews "This story is like walking on a tightrope. It's exciting and nerve-wracking, and it's a page-turner." -Authorlink "Patience will be rewarded...unexpected connections, both literary and emotional." -Booklist "Gripping, often surprising...Eiriksdottir's novel is both intelligent and affecting." -Publishers Weekly "Lyrical, wrenching, and arresting as a fist punch to the heart, this award winner from Icelandic author Eiriksdottir unfolds the growing concern of Elin Jonsdottir, a seventyish theater props designer, for troubled young playwright Ellen Alfsdottir. At the same time, the slow revelation of a terrible incident in Elin's youth explains her insular existence while building with thrillerlike intensity. North-star bright." -Library Journal "The rare opportunity to dwell in the mind of a troubled woman...a glimpse of tragedy, trauma, and forsakenness-drawing one closer even as it leaves one a little ill at ease." -The Straits Times (Singapore) "A Fist or a Heart is a riveting thriller about the twisty relationship between two women: Elin, a 70-something who lives a lonesome existence and is absorbed by her work making props and prosthetics for adaptations of Nordic crime novels; and Ellen, a young playwright and illegitimate daughter of a famous writer." -Bustle "A novel of isolation and secrets, the emotional resonance of A Fist or a Heart sneaks up on you as you're busy trying to figure out what's lying underneath the solitary lives of these women." -Three Percent "Eiriksdottir offers here a most elegant page-turner, one that disturbs and unsettles, making us question the way trauma casts a spell, the strength of certain secrets, and the innate motivation to find human connection." -NYLON "Award-winning poet, playwright, and novelist Kristin Eiriksdottir has written a clever and many layered story of isolation, art, and memory...A Fist or a Heart sneaks up on you." -Book Riot