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Title details for Woman at 1,000 Degrees by Hallgrimur Helgason - Available

Woman at 1,000 Degrees

by Hallgrimur Helgason
Suzanne Toren
Audiobook
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"I live here alone in a garage, together with a laptop computer and a hand grenade. It's pretty cozy." And . . . she's off. Eighty-year-old Herra Bjornsson, one of the most original narrators in literary history, takes readers along with her on a dazzling ride of a novel that spans the events and locales of the twentieth century. As she lies alone in that garage in the heart of Reykjavik, waiting to die, Herra reflects—in a voice by turns darkly funny, bawdy, poignant, and always, always smart—on the mishaps, tragedies, and turns of luck that took her from Iceland to Nazi Germany, from the United States to Argentina and back to a post-crash, high-tech, modern Iceland. Born to a prominent political family, Herra's childhood begins in the idyllic islands of western Iceland. But when her father makes the foolish decision to cast his lot with a Hitler on the rise, she soon finds herself abandoned and alone in war-torn Europe, relying on only her wits and occasional good fortune to survive. For Herra is, ultimately, a fierce survivor, a modern woman ahead of her time who is utterly without self-pity despite the horrors she has endured. With death approaching, she remembers the husbands and children she has loved and lost, and tries, for the first time, to control her own fate by defying her family's wishes and setting a date for her cremation—at a toasty temperature of 1,000 degrees. Each chapter of Herra's story is a piece of a haunting puzzle that comes together beautifully in the book's final pages. Originally published in Icelandic and based on a real person whom author Hallgrimur Helgason encountered by chance, Woman at 1,000 Degrees was a bestseller in Germany, France, and Denmark, and has been compared to "John Irving on speed." But it is deeply moving as well, the story of a woman swept up by the forces of history. With echoes of All the Light We Cannot See and The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, as well as European tours de force such as The Tin Drum, Woman at 1,000 Degrees is, ultimately, original, introducing a fresh new voice to American audiences. Author bio: Hallgrimur Helgason was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1959. He started out as an artist and debuted as a novelist in 1990, gaining international attention with his third novel, 101 Reykjavik, which was translated into fourteen languages and made into a film. He has thrice been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, including for his novel Woman at 1,000 Degrees. Also a columnist and a father of three, he now divides his time between Reykjavik and Hrisey Island.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    March 10, 2018

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781501971273
      • File size: 424204 KB
      • Duration: 14:43:45

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Suzanne Toren is at her elegant best in performing this stunning audiobook, in its way as shattering as Jerzy Kosinski's THE PAINTED BIRD. The title character is a sardonic, wounded, brilliant Icelandic woman on her deathbed. In a garage. As a pretty, young adolescent, she was stranded alone in Hamburg in 1942, her father having joined the Nazis and her mother prevented from reaching her in a city in chaos until it was too late. What it took for her to survive leaves her shrewd and bitter, but also full of a wisdom that has cost her too much; it's an indelible voice, a tone the actor must handle with great skill for this powerfully written, ultimately unforgettable to story have its effect. Toren nails it. B.G. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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