trans. by Ted Goossen

mostly inevitable conclusion, forecasted by the chapter where the characters negotiate the contract.

A thriller without many thrills.

LEAN YOUR LONELINESS SLOWLY AGAINST MINE

Hveberg, Klara Trans. by McCullough, Alison HarperVia/HarperCollins (304 pp.) $26.99 | Nov. 2, 2021 978-0-06-303832-5

A debut novel, translated from Norwegian, that explores love as an infinite fractal set, bound only by the dimensions that it invents.

Rakel is the only child of two devoted but unhappy parents. Her mother emigrated from Asia—leaving behind her work, her culture, and her language—in order to marry her father but has found it nearly impossible to acclimate to Norway’s racially homogenous culture. Her father dotes on Rakel but doesn’t understand the pressure she feels to keep her fearful mother safe. As Rakel grows, her propensity for logic puzzles and natural affinity for the patterns of music resolve themselves into a near virtuoso talent for conceptual mathematics. She moves to Oslo to attend the university and quickly meets Jakob Krogstad, a professor who has captured her attention through an article he wrote about the 19th-century Russian mathematician Sofia Kovalevskaya. Jakob is quick to appreciate the uniqueness of Rakel’s mind, and what begins as a mentorship slowly develops into a consuming romance. In spite of the fact that Jakob is married and has two small daughters, Rakel persuades herself that their relationship cannot be immoral because it is being undertaken in the service of true love. She agrees to wait eight years, at which point Jakob’s children will be older and they will be able to love each other openly. As time passes, Rakel’s career soars and her love for Jakob solidifies, but her health declines precipitously from an undiagnosable illness that leaves her frequently bedridden. She is forced to spend more and more time in isolation, too exhausted to live a life outside of the rich one found in her naturally inquisitive mind. The novel progresses in fragments of thought and impression. Small scenes become the gateways for passages of philosophy that stake their existential discourse about identity, space, time, and individuality on the mathematical theories that are Rakel’s solace as her autonomous life grounds to a halt in the grip of her illness. In another author’s hands, Rakel’s stasis—her physical and emotional inability to move beyond the intensity of her feelings for Jakob—might be frustrating. For Hveberg, the imbalance between Rakel’s richly evoked interior life and the lack of agency she wields in her experiences provides an opportunity to delve into the character’s vibrant intellect without diluting the reader’s sense of Rakel as a character whose joys and sorrows reflect our own.

A novel of interior spaces that plumbs the depths of loneliness in order to find within it the origins of love.

PEOPLE FROM MY NEIGHBORHOOD

Kawakami, Hiromi Trans. by Goossen, Ted Soft Skull Press (176 pp.) $15.95 paper | Nov. 30, 2021 978-1-59376-711-2

Thirty-six linked fabulist shorts set in a small Japanese town. Kawakami’s opening story, “The Secret,” sets the stage for the book to come. One day, while walking back to her room, the narrator comes across a white cloth lying underneath a zelkova tree. When she lifts the cloth she discovers a bossy child who moves in with her and stays for the next 30 years, her constant companion, listening with “great sympathy” to her “tales of woe,” neither aging nor changing in any way. When she asks, “Why