The Creator

Description

When Loa's car gets a puncture out in the countryside, the man who lives nearest proves recalcitrantly helpful. She ends up falling asleep in his armchair and wakes to intense guilt at neglecting her daughter back in Reykjavik, followed by shock at what she finds in her helper's back room - half-finished, life-size silicone women hanging from hooks. Sveinn, her host, is a craftsman; he makes sex dolls. In his workshop Loa is overcome with a surprising reverence, and acting on a mad notion of salvation, she steals one of the dolls for her troubled daughter Margret. For the first time ever, Loa finds she is a thief. And worse, when her friends and family greet her plans with incredulity, she finds that there is another more awful theft, beyond her expectations and her understanding. Bereft and adrift, how can Loa save her daughter from herself and what can she learn from Sveinn's loneliness? Two people who fear responsibility putting themselves in harm's way, Sveinn and Loa dance a fascinating dance in this striking novel from Iceland's most celebrated young novelist.

Gudrun Eva Minervudottir born in 1976, was raised in various villages around Iceland, and spent her youth bartending and studying. A professional writer since the age of 22, she lives in Reykjavik with her husband, film maker Marteinn Thorsson, and daughter Minerva Marteinsdottir. This is her first book to be translated into English.

A strange compelling experiment... a clever, amusing novel that plays with ideas about the boundary between the real and the artificial and the begs profound questions about loneliness and the human condition. - **** "Metro" An affecting exploration of loneliness and detachment - "Financial Times""