Grace

by Linn Ullmann

Book Overview

Johan has sometimes been fortunate but never particularly successful: he lost his job for a breach of professional integrity, and he and his son haven't spoken in eight years. His greatest... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400042852
• ISBN13: 9781400042852
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 130 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Incredibly dark, chilling novel...

I love the way Linn Ullmann has portrayed the married life in a darker, more surreal manner in Before You Sleep and Stella Descending. She does not sugarcoat the events when it is time to show the darker side of characters in love. Ullmann takes things to unflinching heights with Grace. This novel centers on a man's terminal illness with cold, unsentimental language that is both thought provoking and disturbing. Jonah, a journalist, learns he has six months left to live. As he waits around for death to befall him, he regales the reader with stories about his former relationships and the things he had done up to the moment that the doctor gives him the terrible news. There is no way to summarize the plot of this novel. Linn Ullmann readers know that her novels are complex -- they jump from one different scene to another, with a lot of magic realism into the mix. The most fascinating part of Grace is the author's ability to turn what could have been a sad story into something disarming. The characters are all dark and unpleasant -- and the language of the novel makes them all the darker. The ending is one of the most disturbing ones I have read. I finished this book last night and I am still spooked over some of the scenes and passages. This is one incredible novel. Linn Ullmann has proven once again that she is a talented Scandinavian literary novelist. I recommend all of her novels, including this new piece of work.

Cast a cold eye on death

This short novel hums with honesty as it charts the life of a terminal patient, Johan Sletten, and his circle, but GRACE never stoops to cheap sentiment. I would like to unpack another review, which contends that Linn Ullmann has "an exclusive commitment to exposing life's banality" and a "condescending tone" that locks the reader out of the story. Taking the word at face value, of course life is banal -- what else can it be? We all have in common that we will die; there is nothing original there. Yet Ullmann emphatically finds meaning in life, in simple things like the dark strands of hair of Sletten's second wife, or her dutiful tending to a boil on his face. The human connections are true and moving, and we are only "locked out" of this story if we are expecting to be covered in sentimental goop and "feelings" a la the Oprah show; thankfully, Ullmann does not oblige. A condescending tone? Ullmann is clear-eyed, grown-up, and has no illusions about human virtuousness. If that's condescending, then Joseph Conrad was condescending. GRACE is a beautiful little book.