Karen Havelin's Please Read This Leaflet Carefully is a life told in reverse and a subversion of what we expect from stories of illness. Having been diagnosed with endometriosis in her twenties, we follow Laura Fjellstad in her struggle to live a normal life across New York, Paris and Oslo, fueled by her belief that to survive her chronic illness she must be completely self-reliant.
Flowing backwards from 2016 to 1995, we meet Laura's younger selves: her healthier selves. Laura as a daughter, a figure skater, a lover, and a mother-finally leading a life her own teenage self would be in awe of.
To be devoured intensely in one sitting, Please Read This Leaflet Carefully is a remarkable debut novel with bracing emotional insights and piercing descriptions of pain that linger in one's mind long after the last page. It is also a beguiling meditation on relationships, motherhood, sexuality, pain and the limitations of our own bodies.
- ISBN10 1911585541
- ISBN13 9781911585541
- Publish Date 30 May 2019 (first published 7 May 2019)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Cinder House
- Imprint Dead Ink
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 320
- Language English