Heaven and Hell

Stefánsson (Your Absence Is Darkness) plumbs the depths of a young man’s grief in this ruminative and piercing bildungsroman. The 19-year-old protagonist, known only as “the boy,” finds work with his friend Bárður as cod fishermen in remote Iceland during the 19th century. After the pair head out on a small fishing boat one morning, they run into a winter storm. Bárður, who forgot to wear waterproof clothing, freezes to death. When the boy returns to shore, he embarks on a journey to return a copy of John Milton’s Paradise Lost that Bárður had borrowed to its owner. A series of digressive passages from the perspectives of secondary characters have little to do with the boy and tend to wear on the reader. Better are the author’s lyrical musings on life and death, informed by the boy’s sad story and Milton’s epic: “Joy, happiness, burning-hot love form the trinity that makes us people, which justifies life and makes it larger than death.” Readers willing to go the distance will reap plenty of rewards. Agent: Monica Gram, Copenhagen Literary. (Feb.)