AshehougAgency

Hannah's Story with Heddy

The two Norwegian women Hannah and Heddy share a flat in a nameless city in Poland. They originally came there to study, but have long since drifted away from all sorts of organised life. Hannah, 46, who once dreamt of becoming a philosopher, is an anorectic, and Heddy, twenty years her junior, suffers from bulimia. A love-hate-relationship and a fragile balance have evolved between the two women: While Heddy is looking after Hannah, she is also deeply dependent on her, something that inspires nothing but contempt from Hannah’s part.

Then Heddy finds a boyfriend, Daniel, who moves into the flat. This causes a severe disruption in the two women’s relationship.

Hannah’s Story with Heddy is a peculiar dark comedy that draws new and surprising lines between the individual, the social, the existential and the political.

Praise for Hannah's Story with Heddy:

"Næss has succeeded in creating a text that is unpredictable from one page to the next, thereby making the reading experience unusually frightening and at times something as rare and exclusive as shocking."
(Klassekampen)

"The simplest sensory experiences get their own, new form in Næss' writing, there are plenty of small surprises, twists in the language, soar and at the same time comical moments ... at some point the book became more of a page turner for me ... I keep finding new things; there is so much here that is beautiful, strong, important. So many sentences and paragraphs to savour, experiences that seem familiar and that at the same time seem so much Heddy's own, new."
(Morgenbladet)

”[one of] last year’s best written and most clearly conceived novels … [its] courageous insisting on examining the tipping point between being a functional part of society and simply being, [refusing] to let go of the value of the pointless. It’s liberating to se how calmly and persistently [jt does all this – completely down to earth, without resorting to extreme violence, extreme sex, extreme social complications.”
(Morgenbladet)

First published: Forlaget Oktober, 2008
Kristine Næss: Biography and bibliography