The second novel in a trilogy featuring an unnamed boy, The Sorrow of Angels by Icelandic author Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Your Absence Is Darkness) will leave readers breathless and eager for the final installment but not before taking them on an epic journey through ice, snow, and the dark corners of the human heart.
Like the trilogy's opening volume, Heaven and Hell, this fiercely intelligent title pits its characters against the capricious climate of Iceland, rightly identifying its importance early on: "The weather controls everything here, it models our lives like clay." The Sorrow of Angels begins as the boy emerges from the warmth of his new home to greet Postman Jens, frozen to the horse he's riding. Only later does the boy find he must forgo his pending education and follow Jens over the heath "on a journey, out to the end of the world. Where Iceland ends and eternal winter begins."
With a lilting, direct translation from Philip Roughton, The Sorrow of Angels describes the men and their grueling trek to deliver the mail. They are knocked down time and again by the force of nature but rise through sheer will and perseverance. This is an unremitting tale that rushes through its final pages to an unexpected and unresolved ending, but it is also a wonder, fascinating and full of truth. As Jens and the boy walk, "two men in search of themselves," they face universal questions: how to move forward despite uncertainty, how to love in the face of loss, and how to trust--themselves and others. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian