Will and Testament review: Vigdis Hjorth uncovers family secrets

I have been meaning to write a few more reviews of books from Verso that I love for a while. They may be well known to you for their political and non-fiction books, but they also have a fiction list that is stocked full of gripping reads from a diverse set of writers including Izumi Suzuki, Marlowe Granados, Marianne Fritz and more. They also publish all but one of the books by Norwegian writer Vigdis Hjorth that are available in English – you may remember how much I liked Long Live The Post Horn! And if I needed any further nudging to write this Will and Testament review, Meredith at Dolce Bellezza is hosting Norway in November so be sure to head there and find some more recommendations for unmissable books from Norwegian writers.

With great timing, Will and Testament opens on a ‘bright and beautiful late November morning, the sun was shining, I might have mistaken it for spring…’ Bergljot’s enjoyment of the clear day is soon interrupted by a call from her sister, pulling her into a dispute between her two sisters and brother about how their parents have chosen to share out two summer cabins they own. As with any family, there have been quarrels over the years, but certain events have led to a long estrangement. While the two younger sisters always got on well with their parents, Bergljot and her brother have different memories of growing up, alleging abuse by their father that their mother ignored.

What starts as a disagreement over property soon becomes a consideration of how allegations of historical abuse are handled and the difficult path to being believed faced by survivors. The acknowledgement and resolution Bergljot seeks from her family is shut down at every attempt she makes, in favour of keeping her quiet and smoothing things over. Psychoanalysis is key to Bergljot’s beginning to heal and her conversations and dreams, her breakdowns and breakthroughs, are all laid bare. Hjorth also conveys how the other siblings see the estrangement and how the parents playing favourites has affected the relationships between their children. Their different experiences and the way events and words have been interpreted over the years means they cannot find their way towards any kind of reconciliation.

It was exhausting to act politely towards people who presented themselves as loving me.

Bergljot’s life, coming to the reader through first-person narrative, has been traumatic – and as in Long Live The Post Horn! –  Hjorth and translator Charlotte Barslund really nail the way thoughts crowd in and repeat themselves, and language illuminates or distorts. Bergljot and her friend Klara both work in the arts and spend time at plays and exhibitions, writing for magazines and away on retreats or low-level feuding with other creatives. Philosophers and poets are quoted and discussed, as are books they have read. There is a Tove Ditlevsen line that Klara quotes often. This part of their lives is beautifully woven into the story. I love the way Vigdis Hjorth’s books capture how the mundane and the profound mix – how the everyday can intrude at a time when everything seems like it should be falling apart.

I walked past a shop front and saw someone who looked like me in the window, but it couldn’t be me because she looked well. I stopped, retraced my steps and studied myself, a seemingly functioning woman. Could I see myself through her eyes? You’re clever, I said to her, and you don’t look too bad, I said to her. Shouldn’t you be out in the world doing things?

While much of Bergljot’s story is painful and difficult, the fact that she has been out in the world is – while not the resolution she has been seeking from her family – a victory of sorts. Creating and collaborating as well as building her own ‘found family’, with her children and partner and a close circle of friends, including Bo, who studies conflict from the former Yugoslavia to Palestine, and Klara, who has learnt to pick herself up over and over again with the toughness of a streetfighter, Bergljot has been piecing together how to live in the aftermath of trauma. While a much darker read than Long Live The Post Horn!, in common with that book, Will and Testament is an unflinching examination of a woman’s interior life and spirit that acts as a light in the darkness.

If you have enjoyed this Will and Testament review, it is available from Verso Books