Days in the History of Silence
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From the acclaimed Nordic Council Literature Prize winner, a story that reveals the devastating effects of mistaking silence for peace and feeling shame for inevitable circumstances Eva and Simon have spent most of their adult lives together. He is a physician and she is a teacher, and they have three grown daughters and a comfortable home. Yet what binds them together isn’t only affection and solidarity but also the painful facts of their respective histories, which they keep hidden even from their own children. But after the abrupt dismissal of their housekeeper and Simon’s increasing withdrawal into himself, the past can no longer be repressed. Lindstrøm has crafted a masterpiece about the grave mistakes we make when we misjudge the legacy of war, common prejudices, and our own strategies of survival.
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I am falling more and more in love with these kind of novels on quiet, domestic life. The focus may be small, confined to the silence and unspoken secrets of a single elderly married couple, but the emotional impact is vast. Eva and Simon have lived a lifetime of decisions, both good and bad, and of words or silence, those important words that were left unsaid. Now, as Eva struggles to care for Simon as he falls into the further silence of dementia, she worries that they've left it too late to say what must be said. Both have their secrets, and I won't spoil what they are, as the readers' experience of the initial silence is so important to the development of the story. A beautiful and sad little story about loneliness even in a seemingly loving marriage.