Helle Helle's they is a deceptively slight, minimalist novel that packs a huge emotional punch in its superb translation from Danish by acclaimed translator Martin Aitken. Each austere sentence brings a wealth of information about the mother-daughter relationship at the center of the narrative.
A mother and her 16-year-old daughter have moved frequently from place to place throughout their lives on the island of Lolland in Denmark. The story finds both of them at inflection points. The girl is starting high school and navigating the social landscape that goes along with it, while the mother must confront the news that she is terminally ill and undergoes treatment. Each seemingly insignificant moment is filled with the beauty of the everyday. While the daughter makes friends at school and engages in typical teenage things, her mother is hospitalized.
Helle, a recipient of the Danish Critics Prize for Literature, is an exquisite stylist who details both the sensory surfaces of life (tomato soup, weather, public transportation) and the intimacy inherent in any interaction. The daughter's world is populated by specific friends with names like Tove Dunk, Hafni, Bob, and Steffen, but she and her mother themselves go unnamed--their relationship is too primal and entwined for the distinction that names imply.
Ultimately, they beautifully investigates how people face the end of their shared world and shared story not with drama but with quiet, dogged determination. Helle Helle challenges the reader to find the meaning, the love, and the sacrifice buried deep within the most ordinary and prolonged silences. --Elizabeth DeNoma, executive editor, DeNoma Literary Services, Seattle, Wash.