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Harvill Secker, 2008
Reviewed by Kerrie Smith
The author sits at her desk staring out at the long queue of people
waiting on the drive outside her house. They stand there in the shadows,
waiting to become characters in her book, for their stories to be told.
That night, while she sleeps, one of the characters jumps the queue,
enters her house, and sits on the chair by her bed.
The author agrees to tell his story next. She gives him a name, and begins
to tell his story. But the reader knows Alvar has no story until the
author creates it. Alvar Eide is forty-two years old, a bachelor who works
in an art gallery. His father had lived to only fifty-three and Alvar
imagines that he himself has only eleven years to live. Alvar is a little
old-fashioned both in his attitudes and his appearance, about which he is
fastidious. He doesn't relate to people very well, which is why he doesn't
know how to handle the young girl, a homeless drug addict who works out
how to get him to give her money. She steals a door key from him so she
can let herself in and out of his house whenever she wants to.
The novel is told on two levels. Alvar visits the author whenever he feels
that he isn't coping, or when he doesn't feel she is carrying out her part
of their relationship properly. Ultimately the author is the one who has
control over what happens to Alvar. She says early on that she is not god,
but in terms of Alvar's life she is. Alvar knows that the author's
computer is full of drafts, of stories lying incomplete, and he is
frightened that she will forget about him. She on the other hand creates
situations that will test Alvar, and some of these tests he fails
miserably.
In BROKEN Karin Fossum plays with the reader's mind. We wonder how much
free will Alvar really has. The idea that he is a fictional character of
the author's creation is a challenging one, even though we know it to be
true. Fossum dabbles in metaphysics, with the very nature of Alvar's
existence. We know that authors create their characters, but how real are
they to the author who created them? The author and Alvar even discuss the
methods by which he might die. We see some of the dilemmas that an author
faces in bringing a novel to publication, how she lives and breathes
through the characters that she creates, how they take on a life of their
own.
For those who have enjoyed Fossum's Inspector Sejer series, this
stand-alone is very different. Although someone does die, some would not
label it crime fiction. For that reason some Sejer fans will be
disappointed. For my part, I prefer the Sejer series. BROKEN made
me feel as if I was performing mental gymnastics.
BROKEN was translated from the Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund, Published
in Norwegian in 2006. The Inspector Sejer novels from the Norwegian
"Queen of Crime" are:
1. Don't Look Back (2002)
2. He Who Fears the Wolf (2003)
3. When the Devil Holds the Candle (2004)
4. Calling Out For You (2005) aka The Indian Bride
5. Black Seconds (2007)
October 2008 review originally published in Murder & Mayhem
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