” … that Østhagen convincingly writes out the confusing and frightening, but also joyful impressions and fragments of memory that makes up Signe’s existence. The past blends into the present, fragile memories of a mother who could not handle life keep popping up, while the novel shows how the protagonist finds her bearings through the senses”
Aftenposten
“A painful and beautiful novel about how a senile woman experiences the days and nights at the nursing home … The language is stocky but also softly flowing with alliterations. Signe’s fragments of memories and unexpected associations adds momentum to the story. They are pieced together to a life that is gradually exposed to the reader. Past and future do not exist, except as slim beams strained through an increasingly dense cloth … The author has succeeded in conveying anxiety, confusion, flashes of insight and grief in a person who herself does not convey anything. Credible and insightful”
Bergens Tidende
“calls upon reflection. You belive in Signe, once married to Torfinn, the owner of a clothing shop, with a grown daughter she can no longer recognise and incapable of separating fantasy and reality … Still, the most impressive thing about this text is the fact that the language – bouncy, intense, out-of-breath as it often is – manages to reflect the mother-fixated Signe’s chaotic mind”
Stavanger Aftenblad
“a bold choice: The voice of the book comes from the speechlessness … delicate and moving sequences. The elderly’s view on old age is at times an intense read: How Signe in her clear moments despises the physical decay she sees around her, in the others. All the way into the darkness of forgetfulness it remains almost incomprehensible that she herself is among them.”
Klassekampen
