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, for example, in this instance of the daughter discovering loveliness in her home: "Here she becomes acquainted with the delight of treetops swaying soundlessly on the other side of a windowpane." 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. In one of many exchanges that the pair have while the mother is in the hospital, the daughter notes, "Today then she's not going to the hospital, her mother doesn't see the need anyway for her to keep coming all that way, she ought rather to think of herself and for example buy a nice big pastry from the bakery." 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.
Shelf Talker: Helle Helle's they is a beautifully crafted literary gem that investigates the intricacies of a mother-daughter relationship.