Unquiet

The idea was to write a book about old age, because growing old, her father said, is hard work. They would meet at his beloved house on a Swedish island, surrounded by pines, cliffs, and the Baltic Sea. She’d ask the questions, he’d answer them, she’d transcribe everything, and in the end, they’d have a book. He promised he’d answer her questions honestly, but she wasn’t sure she believed him, and when she finally came to the island with her tape recorder, old age had caught up with him in ways that neither of them could have foreseen.Unquiet is a heartbreaking, funny, and poetic story of love and family, an exploration of memory and loss, identity and art, growing up and growing old. In her most inventive novel yet, Linn Ullmann blends memory and fiction in a luminous meditation on language, mourning, and the many narratives that make up a life.