Because of the distance between people. Because of the loneliness. Because of the mercilessness of the sea, of nature. Because of the barren soil they have to live off. Because of diseases such as tuberculosis. Because of the lack of contraception, all the pregnancies, the births. With all this and more, it can’t be easy to be human in Salsnes at this time. (Elise probably doesn’t think this, but I do.)

Kjersti Skomsvold never knew much about her great-grandmother, Elise, except this: People were afraid of her. And she must have had a hard life.

But when life starts taking its toll, Kjersti lies awake at night. She starts imagining Elise, who was born in 1880. Most of it is fiction, but some of it is true: at twelve, Elise loses her father. Far too young, she begins a relationship with her teacher, and when she gets pregnant at the age of 17, they get married. In the years that follow, she gives birth to child after child after child, and she has to bury many of them. But even though Elise is remembered as an angry and bitter woman, she must have loved life at one time, right?

She Is Alive. Elise’s Book is the first in a planned quartet about the author’s great-grandmothers.