Read more
A mesmerizing collection of playfully surreal stories from one of Norway's most celebrated writersFirst published in Norway in 2004,
Knots is Gunnhild Øyehaug's radical collection of short stories that range from the surreal to the oddly mundane, and prod the discomforts of mental, sexual, and familial bonds.
In both precise short-shorts and ruminative longer tales, Øyehaug meanders through the tangled, jinxed, and unavoidable conflicts of love and desire. From young Rimbaud's thwarted passions to the scandalous disappearance of an entire family, these stories do the chilling work of tracing the outlines of what could have been in both the quietly morbid and the delightfully comical. A young man is born with an uncuttable umbilical cord and spends his life physically tethered to his mother; a tipsy uncle makes an uncomfortable toast with unforeseeable repercussions; and a dissatisfied deer yearns to be seen. As one character reflects, "You never know how things might turn out, you never know how anything will turn out, tomorrow the walls might fall down, the room disappear."
Cleverly balancing the sensuous, the surreal, and the comical, Øyehaug achieves a playful familiarity with the absurd that never overreaches the needs of her stories. Full of characters who can't help tying knots in themselves and each other, these tales make the world just a little more strange, and introduce a major international voice of searing vision, grace, and humor.
List of contents
CONTENTS
Nice and Mild 3
Taking Off, Landing 13
Small Knot 17
Gold Pattern 27
Overtures 31
A Renowned Engineer 44
The Girl Holding My Hand 47
From the Lighthouse 54
Grandma Is Sleeping 57
An Entire Family Disappears 61
It's Raining in Love 64
Compulsion 71
Oh, Life 76
Echo 79
The Deer at the Edge of the Forest 88
It's Snowing 89
Fortune Smiles on Mona Lisa 96
Deal 101
Trapeze 109
Blanchot Slips Under a Bridge 117
Air 121
Transcend 126
Meanwhile, on Another Planet 130
Vitalie Meets an Officer 132
The Object Assumes an Exalted Place in the Discourse 139
Two by Two 142
Notes 165
About the author
Gunnhild Øyehaug is an award-winning Norwegian poet, essayist, and fiction writer. Her story collection
Knots was published by FSG in 2017, followed in 2018 by
Wait, Blink, which was adapted into the acclaimed film
Women in Oversized Men's Shirts, and in 2022 by
Present Tense Machine. Øyehaug lives in Bergen, where she teaches creative writing.
Summary
A mesmerising collection of playfully surreal stories from one of Norway's most celebrated writers.
