The author does an amazing job of taking you inside the mind of someone who is trying to get others to acknowledge her trauma, the circling and obsessiveness and paranoia. This realness is actually the downside of the book - it got repetitive, then tedious, then made me feel like I was having a breakdown. Skimming became necessary about 2/3 of the way through the book.

I felt really frustrated throughout that she kept talking about having cut off contact with her family while in actuality staying in constant contact with them. JUST FUCKING DO IT! By the end of the book I was sick of her inability to do the ONE thing that she had to do to help herself, and I was pretty sick of her in general.

Pros: the book gave me lots of food for thought, very good heavy stuff
Cons: we are inside the head of someone having a 30 year long mental breakdown, and the reader feels it ( )

Now this was a good book. I can't say I liked it, but it definitely made me think. The story centers around four adult siblings and their parents as they argue over the inheritance of two summer cabins. The older two children, Bärd and Bergljot, find out that the younger two, Astrid and Asa, have been given the cabins and they are valued a price much below market value when they are factored into the supposedly evenly split inheritance. But the real issue is that Bergljot was sexually abused by her father between the ages of 5-7 and the father denies it and the mother and younger daughters believe the father.

This is a novel written from Bergljot's point of view as a survivor. It's painful to see all the ways the abuse affected her life and her relationships. But the most interesting character to me is Astrid. Astrid works with a human rights organization and she knows all the right words. She tries to maintain a relationship with Bergljot. She "takes her seriously" but can't pick a side with "no proof". Astrid uses all of the words you're supposed to. She's intelligent, "emotionally aware", rational, and politically correct. But she's also wrong. I found this such a deep exploration of how we treat survivors of abuse. It wasn't a particularly pleasurable novel to read - it's very repetitive and there's not really a great resolution. But I think the themes and the issues it brings up for deeper thought are polarizing and important.

When you're in the mood for a frustrating but intellectual and thoughtful novel, this is the one to pick up. ( )

Although I found this an absorbing novel, it was too similar to Hjorth’s recently published Is Mother Dead? for me to fully appreciate. It’s the first-person-singular narrative of an obsessive adult estranged from her family of origin, the members of which are unwilling to accept her claims that her father sexually abused her when she was a young child.

The matter comes to a head when Bergljot, the main character, and her elder brother, Bård, who’s also had a fraught and painful relationship with “Dad,” learn that the elderly man is planning to give the family’s summer cabins to his two youngest daughters, Astrid and Åsa, even though he’d promised there would be equal distribution of his assets among his four children. Bergljot had earlier indicated she had no interest in inheriting anything, but her brother reaches out to her. He had wanted his family to continue to have access to the summer places on the island, and he believes there should be shared ownership. What follows are the efforts of the two to be heard by their younger siblings who are invested in having things remain as they are. Bergljot’s mother, a once beautiful, always dependent and manipulative woman, who threatens (and occasionally attempts) suicide, is also committed to denial.

Hjorth gives us texts, emails, dreams, and conversations between these characters. Bergljot’s friend, Klara, urges her on. Her boyfriend, Lars, on the other hand, is clearly weary of his partner’s interminable family drama. I should add that Bergljot is not a young woman, but a divorced mother of three adult children—and a grandmother. Her children are supportive of her. With their mother’s blessing, two maintain contact with their grandparents; the visits with the extended family take some of the heat off her. However, the third adult child, Tale, is incensed by the family’s hypocrisy and treatment of her mother. To add to the overall mess, the patriarch dies. A “dignified” funeral is insisted upon, and there’s no telling what stunt Bergljot might pull at the service.

Will and Testament comes to a credible conclusion—i.e., there is no actual resolution. The reality, of course, is that “closure” in life is rare, often just a pipe dream. Hjorth does, however, effectively communicate the frustration and rage of a person who is persistently dismissed and disbelieved. As with all first-person narratives, there are questions about the reliability of the narrator. Hjorth appears to have anticipated this. Bergljot is believable and can see how family members might perceive her actions and the situation overall. The perspectives of others—their commitment to the family narrative and the status quo, their frustration with the explosive sibling whom they’d just like to see go away—are also well communicated.

As I said, I wasn’t fully satisfied with this novel. It’s repetitive and quite claustrophobic, and the obsessive narrator does become tiresome. Even so, I was invested enough to complete it. ( )

I read this book while I had what has become in the last few decades, my traditional pre-Christmas cold. I simply figured that all the repeating of sentences and happenings in the book were the fuzzy and hazy side effect of my flu’s befuddlement. Yet, when my condition improved, and I was still reading the book, the repetitions continued.

How did I find myself with this book? It's not that I’m totally impressionable, but several fantastic book reviews prompted me to quickly order three of this Norwegian writer’s books, an author I had never read or had even heard of before. Now, I know Vigdis Hjorth, as a clever, disturbing, and impressively fine writer.

As the book starts up, the reader is introduced to the characters: the parents (both in their eighties), their four grown children, and a few grandchildren. The plot concerns the inheritance of the elderly parent’s wealth and property. Slowly, the reader realizes that there’s a hidden key element here, one that hasn’t been revealed, but has just been vaguely hinted about. By the last pages, all the twists and turns of the plot are tied very tightly together with the will and testament of the parents.

Will and Testament was strange and dark from beginning to end. The style is loose, with a great deal of that afore-mentioned repetition and a slow reveal of the sexual abuse of the oldest sister by the patriarch of the family. You learn that this abuse has scarred some and affected all of the family’s relationships. As the parents are planning the division of the estate, a battle breaks out when the parents declare—that while the estate will be divided “equally,” that term seems debatable.

The two youngest girls get the two coveted holiday cabins on the coast, whose value is seriously lowballed relative to the rest of the estate. The oldest girl (the abusee) and her brother are left without any access to the coastal cabins, and see their younger siblings seeming to get much more than their fair share overall. Things turn ugly.

The brother (the second oldest) has had little to do with the rest of the family, and the oldest has cut off contact with her family for more than twenty years. Like a season of Survivor, there are alliances, with the youngest vacationing with the parents at the cabins often, and the older siblings distant.

As for the sexual abuse, one of the younger sisters doesn’t believe that it occurred, and the other believes the abuse took place, but is so silent about it, that the oldest thinks she doesn’t believe her either. The brother believes it happened, but the mother speaks out strongly against the charges. Surprisingly, we eventually find out that her husband had physically and verbally abused his wife for years. The mother had spent a great deal of time with the abused girl when she was younger, but they became distant when the girl rejected the family.

I feel I’ve described the story bizarrely, but that’s just how it’s written. It is such a dark web of relationships, and the distasteful and bleak story still rather haunts me now. At the same time, I found it such a uniquely told story, that it stays with me for that reason as well. ( )

Mycket välskrivet och fängslande. Det lite udda språket med korta meningar påminner lite om Karin Smirnoffs böcker. Arvstvister kan ju locka fram de mest avundsamma sidorna bland arvingar och i denna berättelse döljs så mycket mer unde uppväxten. Rekommenderas starkt. ( )