May 1, 2023
Based on the true story of one of America's first female serial killers, Kielland's dense, lyrical novel offers both insight and opacity. In 1876, 17-year-old Brynhild St�rset is overwhelmed by her own longings and her religious-induced shame. When she becomes pregnant, an act of violence leads to a miscarriage and, from there, a miserable boat trip from Norway to the United States. She makes her way to the Midwest and moves in with her disapproving sister, Nellie, and her family, even taking a new name: Bella. (Later, she becomes Belle.) Despite the vast landscape, she tries to keep herself small and contained, focusing on her work as a seamstress and faithfully attending church. She longs to be touched, longs for a child of her own, but "it was the same in America as in Norway--it didn't matter, the world didn't care about her." Then she meets Mads S�rensen, and despite his love for her, she finds herself "just waiting for everything else to be taken away, for the invisible betrayal." Nevertheless, they get married and begin to take in a series of children, many of whom seem to die through some vague failing of Belle's, who isn't "a real mother." When Mads dies suddenly, and suspiciously, Belle and her remaining three children trade their house for a pig farm, which begets a series of men and tragedies. Despite the subject matter, this novel is not your typical thriller. The language, in Searls' translation, is dense, poetic, and deeply figurative, as demonstrated by the first page: "The words grabbed her by the throat, Belle didn't know when it was all going to snap, but she knew it would. A bullet, an inverted lung, a postscript to a thousand wars, tears ran down her face." Belle is unknowable, even by the novel itself, for in the end, this isn't really a story about a serial killer. A meditation on female desire, on loneliness, on mental illness.
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May 15, 2023
Originally published in Norway in 2021, this second novel from Victoria Kielland, widely acknowledged as a rising star in Norwegian literature, is loosely based on the true story of nineteenth-century Norwegian-American serial killer Belle Gunness. After a brutal end to an affair, 17-year-old Brynhild St�rset flees to America, bereft of lover, unborn baby, and the joy they briefly brought her; she travels to Chicago to join her sister, Nellie, and her family. Renaming herself first Bella, then Belle, she craves unconditional love and God's forgiveness, constantly seeking absolution and approval, particularly from the men she meets, as she struggles to define her identity in a harsh world. Belle finds fleeting happiness with two husbands and their adopted children, but as her madness unfolds, she retreats into a lush, introspective swirl of sensory details. Kielland's pithy tale lingers long after the reader is finished. In addition to historical fiction readers, aficionados of both crime fiction and Scandinavian literature will welcome this award-winning voice to the table.
COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
June 19, 2023
The provocative English-language debut from Kielland chronicles a real-life serial killer active during the turn of the 20th century in America. Brynhilde Belle Gunness, 17, emigrates from Norway in 1876 after her lover, the eldest son of a wealthy farming family, kicked her in the stomach upon hearing that she was pregnant with their child and caused her to miscarry. She joins her pious older sister, Nellie, in Chicago, where she attempts to be a “God-fearing” person like Nellie and bond with her nieces and nephews. In church, Belle wills her shoulders to “relax in the sight of God,” but what she really wants is a new sexual partner. She lets a man named Mads Sørensen seduce her, and moves in with him before they get married, prompting Nellie to cut her off from the children. She then marries Mads, who dies in 1900 under mysterious circumstances after the couple adopted three children. Belle remarries and takes custody of two more children, all of whom witness her murder a series of men. The asynchronous narrative builds a sense of foreboding as Belle meets various men who become her victims. Her spiritual yearning and profane desires are captured in dynamic and subversive prose as Kielland explores how Belle’s homicidal tendencies derive from a perverted sense of love. It’s an impressive feat of historical imagination.