Norwegian author Frode Grytten's The Ferryman and His Wife is a beautiful meditation on love and loss that answers the question of how to tell the story of one man's life, outwardly modest yet nonetheless striking. The man is Nils Vik, trusted for years to ferry people across the fjord, now facing the last day of his life. Though it mentions a recent diagnosis, the novel doesn't offer further explanation; still, Nil's intentions are clear as he readies the house, leaves a note for his daughters, burns the mattress, and asks himself: "What do you take with you when you know you're not coming back?"
Translator Alison McCullough infuses Grytten's text with an artful simplicity, poetic but never ponderous: "The day had yet to take on its colours. The grass was trampled flat and autumnally mottled, and it had stopped raining. He loved mornings like this, laden and untouched." On his way to his boat, Nils is surprised by Luna, his canine companion who died years ago; readers come to understand this will be no ordinary narrative. Throughout the day, Nils travels the fjord, picking up figures from his past, each fulfilling his goal when he set out: "He will pull a thread through time, follow it backwards, see where time takes him.... He will trace what he has loved in life, lift it up, honour it. For if he doesn't do this, who will?" A stunning rumination on time and what it means to have lived well, this novel is a perfect reminder of the importance of life's small moments. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian