Will and Testament

Longlisted for the National Book Award

Four siblings, two summer houses, one terrible secret–the “prickly, persuasive” bestseller from one of Norway’s most celebrated novelists, perfect for readers of Rachel Cusk and Karl Ove Knausgaard (New Yorker)

” . . . Hypnotic. Hjorth works finely parsed and brilliant variations on her unrelenting theme of familial mistrust and misunderstanding.” —New York Times

When a dispute over her parents’ will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled twenty years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favoritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as something very different–a final attempt to suppress the truth and a cruel insult to the grievously injured.

Will and Testament is a lyrical meditation on trauma and memory, as well as a furious account of a woman’s struggle to survive and be believed. Vigdis Hjorth’s novel became a controversial literary sensation in Norway and has been translated into twenty languages.

Author: Vigdis Hjorth
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Verso Fiction
Published: 09/10/2019
Series: Verso Fiction
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.6lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781788733106
Language: English