Burial Rites

 “They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say “Agnes” and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.” 

When you already know how a story ends and yet, you find yourself agonizing over the fate of its protagonists willing for History to change direction, it says a lot about the writer's talent to make you so interested in the novel that you deny reality. This is what happens with Hannah Kent's Burial Rites.

The haunting, almost harrowing, landscape of Iceland becomes a character as significant as Agnes, Tóti, Natan and Margret. Each character springs out of the pages and right into your soul. Agnes' voice is full of dignity and beauty, even when she momentarily gives in to despair. Margret is strength and determination, Tóti is compassion and Natan is love as a destructive force.

Burial Rites is one of the best books in the Gothic Crime fiction genre, a genre that is rejuvenated by authors like Hannah Kent and Cecilia Ekbäck.

“I remain quiet. I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away. I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt.”