Before You Sleep
by Linn Ullmann

Amazing.

Karin muses over her life and the paths taken by her mother, sister and other family.  From Oslo to New York to Oslo, from the 1930's to the 1990's and back, Karin seduces older men, reminisces her grandfather and dissects her sister's marriage.

The writing is honest.  Linn is a breeze of fresh air among the mediocre writers that publishers are pushing on the public at the moment.

Page 110:

"The first few years after Julie's wedding I see a lot of Julie, Val Bryn, and Torild.  We drink beer and wine and gin and tonics.  Someone once wrote that the secret to a happy life is staying two drinks ahead of reality and three drinks behind inebriation.  Let that be a motto.

We go to cafes.

We tell each other secrets."

Page 100 regarding pregnancy:

"The nausea comes later.  It starts like a little murmuring in my stomach and spreads like a liquid nettles through my body.  Nausea, can you understand this?  Soured school milk.  Quivering aspic.  Day-old bacon fat.  Spoiled venison.  I"ve moved onto a rocking boat, I'm full of sludge, and the deck is spinning, I've eaten contaminated mussels, I throw up.  I don't want to keep anything down and so I throw up...."

Linn please grace us with another book of poetic excellence.  And she answers me.  August 2003 her second book Stella Descending will be translated into English.

Thank you Linn.
 

Tony DuShane