- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Knopf (Aug 12 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0307265471
- ISBN-13: 978-0307265470
- Product Dimensions: 15.7 x 3 x 21.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,415,119 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Amid summering tourists on the tiny Swedish island of Hammarsö, a blended multinational family comes together in this arresting and well-observed saga from Ullmann (Grace). Isak, a professor prone to fits of rage, has a loving second wife in Rosa and three daughters by three different women. The eldest, Erika, 13, and the youngest, Molly, five, are flown to Sweden in the summer by their mothers to spend some time with their brilliant, and infuriating father. Middle girl Laura, Rosa's daughter, welcomes them; together, the girls apprehend terror in Isak's irrepressible fits and, tragically, in Ragnar, a local boy Erika's age who doesn't fit in. The narrative moves back and forth in time, as the three daughters converge 25 years later on Hammarsö to visit their aging father, now mourning the loss of Rosa. In adulthood, each woman possesses a profound inner life haunted by buried childhood memory. While the book's tonal coolness won't be for everyone, the observations of teen life are exceptional, and Ullmann (daughter of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullmann) successfully mines the traumas of youth for powerful adult emotions. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
Advance praise for Linn Ullmann’s A Blessed Child
“Linn Ullmann's A Blessed Child is a like a fine, long evening of light. There are all sorts of colors on the horizon, and even when the darkness becomes visible, there is still a place to turn to. This is a book for fathers and daughters, and for anyone who's beguiled by the country of family. The language is clear and runs deep. The story is profound and touching. Together, they announce another great story telling feat by Linn Ullmann. She reminds me of Berger, of Aciman, of Toibin: no greater praise.”
– Colum McCann, author of Zoli: A Novel
“A world-famous octogenarian father approaching death, three daughters, each of a different mother, a windswept island in the Baltic: of these, of fragments of recollection, and of a childhood summer when an event of unimaginable cruelty changed everything, Linn Ullmann has woven a memory novel of haunting power and grace.”
– Honor Moore, author of The Bishop’s Daughter
“A hauntingly beautiful novel of family ties, A Blessed Child takes on what it means to be old, what it means to have loved selfishly, deeply and — equally - to no longer love. Linn Ullmann has crafted an inescapably evocative novel about memory, about childhood, about the movement of life, the nature of grief and the enormous mystery of love.”
- A.M. Homes, author of The Mistress’s Daughter
“A Blessed Child is a tour de force of, for want of a better way of putting it, narrative memory. In this nuanced and subtle and smart novel, the past and its tragedies are supervening over the present and its tragedies in wait, and even the living can seem to inhabit a kind of timeless island of familial memory. The folding of time upon time upon time, however complexly difficult for the writer to achieve, creates an effect that is sure and beautiful. This is a novel about how people think, and about the things we think, and about how, finally, the manner and content of our thoughts may very well be pretty much who we are.”
- Donald Antrim, author of The Afterlife: A Memoir
"A novel of stark beauty that leaves moral issues tantalizingly open."
- Kirkus Review
“Linn Ullmann's A Blessed Child is a like a fine, long evening of light. There are all sorts of colors on the horizon, and even when the darkness becomes visible, there is still a place to turn to. This is a book for fathers and daughters, and for anyone who's beguiled by the country of family. The language is clear and runs deep. The story is profound and touching. Together, they announce another great story telling feat by Linn Ullmann. She reminds me of Berger, of Aciman, of Toibin: no greater praise.”
– Colum McCann, author of Zoli: A Novel
“A world-famous octogenarian father approaching death, three daughters, each of a different mother, a windswept island in the Baltic: of these, of fragments of recollection, and of a childhood summer when an event of unimaginable cruelty changed everything, Linn Ullmann has woven a memory novel of haunting power and grace.”
– Honor Moore, author of The Bishop’s Daughter
“A hauntingly beautiful novel of family ties, A Blessed Child takes on what it means to be old, what it means to have loved selfishly, deeply and — equally - to no longer love. Linn Ullmann has crafted an inescapably evocative novel about memory, about childhood, about the movement of life, the nature of grief and the enormous mystery of love.”
- A.M. Homes, author of The Mistress’s Daughter
“A Blessed Child is a tour de force of, for want of a better way of putting it, narrative memory. In this nuanced and subtle and smart novel, the past and its tragedies are supervening over the present and its tragedies in wait, and even the living can seem to inhabit a kind of timeless island of familial memory. The folding of time upon time upon time, however complexly difficult for the writer to achieve, creates an effect that is sure and beautiful. This is a novel about how people think, and about the things we think, and about how, finally, the manner and content of our thoughts may very well be pretty much who we are.”
- Donald Antrim, author of The Afterlife: A Memoir
"A novel of stark beauty that leaves moral issues tantalizingly open."
- Kirkus Review
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A step backwards, Dec 16 2008
By Reader 100 - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Blessed Child (Hardcover)
Both GRACE and STELLA DESCENDING, Linn Ullmann's previous novels, were strange and compelling, and I read them at a gallop. This one took longer; I was constantly finding reasons to put it down and come back later. A BLESSED CHILD is more self-indulgent, I believe, drawing on the author's own experiences; more nostalgic; and more episodic and staccato, never really gathering steam and taking off. There are a few puzzles inside for those who care to solve them, part of the novel's appealing ambiguousness, but the characters remain fixed on the page and do not enter the reader's imagination. By all means authors should strive not to repeat themselves, but as an admirer of Ullmann's work I found A BLESSED CHILD to be a step backwards from the original voice of her earlier novels.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
"A Blessed Child" -- Gifted story from a gifted storyteller, Oct 11 2008
By Kent Mckamy "banjo_mojo" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Blessed Child (Hardcover)
"A Blessed Child" is an almost Rashomon kind of story, revolving around the perspectives of three sisters who return to a remote Swedish island to be with their aged father for what they believe may be their last time with him. Each daughter has a different mother, and each daughter experiences her own path to maturity in a different way. Author Ullmann weaves their stories together in a completely believeable way, making each's journey fascinating in itself. There is a seminal event which they all witness in unique ways, and deal with in equally unique ways. A satisfying book, well worth spending time with. The author makes the winter weather and the distant locale into "characters" in the story, giving a real feel for the remoteness and frigidity of a tiny Swedish island as the story builds compellingly to a surprising climax. One word about the translation, by a woman curiously named Death: it's first rate, colloquial and symbolic.
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