A friend recommended this short Norwegian novel about a lonely single mother and her young son the night before his birthday. The paragraphs seamlessly switch between the two inner worlds, often creating ambiguities or highlighting deeply different ways of seeing the world to tragic effect.

As a story it was unbelievable and punishing but as an allegory it was incredibly moving. It was able to depict the way two hurt people, as they create emotional distance, can eventually barely inhabit the same reality. It is a story of what happens when a relationship is drained of love.

It got me thinking a lot about the Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s book How To Love, which speaks of these same themes but through the lens of healing. He speaks of difficult feelings as knots of sensitivity that can compound over time and severely distort the ability to be calm enough to see clearly and love. The hope is that the tools of Zen (or whatever works for you) can untie these knots one by one. As an aside, I had written the song Untying a Knot BEFORE I had heard this Buddhist concept!

Powerfully written and difficult, this one will stick with me for a while and for that I am grateful.