Broken

by Karin Fossum

Charlotte Barslund (Translator)

A writer wakes one night to find a strange man in her bedroom. He is a character she has invented, but not yet used, and so desperate is he to have his story told that he has resorted to breaking into her house.

She creates him for Alvar Eide, a quiet, middle-aged man whose life is carefully designed to avoid surprise, but when a young heroine addict comes into the gallery where he works, Alvar's life is changed forever and his inventor realises that she cannot control the character she has created. The result is a superb novel that plays with the boundaries of fact and fiction.

• ISBN10: 1407020099
• ISBN13: 9781407020099
• Publish Date: 16 December 2008 (first published 5 June 2008)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing
• Imprint: Vintage Digital
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 90017
• Language: English

Reviews

[ibeforem]

I loved Fossum’s Black Seconds, so I expected to like this by default. The book’s concept, that a character is harassing the author to write about him and must face the story she presents to him, is definitely a bit indulgent. It feels like something she wrote while stuck on another project, something that probably should never have been published. But that wasn’t my problem with it. The main character, Alvar, is at first intrigued by the young, drug-addicted waif that wanders into the gallery where he works. Later, she just takes advantage of him.

Here is where I confess that I only made it about 3/4 of the way through the book and have no idea what happened in the end, because the more she pushed him and took advantage of him and the more he found himself unable to say no to her, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Real, deep in my chest, bordering on anxiety uncomfortable. I guess you could consider it a plus that the author was able to invoke those sorts of feelings in me, but it really just meant that I had to put down the book. Maybe it all turned out okay in the end, and everyone got their due — I just don’t know. I’ll definitely continue to read Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series, but I’ll have to give anything like this a pass.