THE FERRYMAN AND HIS WIFE, short and sentimental

THE FERRYMAN AND HIS WIFE
FRODE GRYTTEN (tr. Alison McCullough)
Algonquin Books (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$17.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes readers on a quietly epic journey: ferry driver Nils Vik's last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive.

Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping onto his beloved boat.

His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge—from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.

Winner of the prestigious Brage Prize, and considered to be Grytten's long-awaited masterpiece, The Ferryman and His Wife is the story of a quiet, yet utterly profound, life told in reverse. Timeless and absorbing, this is a novel about what we take with us—those moments that might seem insignificant as they happen but prove to be the most meaningful, in the end.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Wisdom comes late in life, if it bothers to stop by your place at all.

To be born was to live long enough to discover what air and sea and earth and hate and love are, then to say thank you and goodbye.

Nils Vik, the ferryman of the title, has a good store of wisdom built up, and uses his last day of life to put it in order.

This life is like an item of clothing, the beauty exists on the outside but the warmth is found within.

Aper&çu after aphorism following quotable line, this is a lovely sentimental ruminative summing-up of a small life lived well.

"He loved his wife. I always said they lived like two clapping hands, she was the left hand, he the right."

If the need for a warm toddy on a cold day is upon you, read this book. It is lovey; it is short; it answers that need we all share for feeling seen and valued for ourselves, for our gifts and how we've given them.

"And don’t think I’m about to ask you. About what? Whether or not you were happy – because I know exactly what you’ll say. You’re one of those people who thinks you’re happy where you are, somebody who wants no more than what you already have."

I found the one discordant note, some people traveling in Nils' ferry to exterminate feral dogs, sufficiently off-putting to skip over any possible details I might be offended by and ding a star off the rating.

Its impact was warming overall, and the prose went down well; will I remember it in a week? Not likely; it was an afternoon's pleasant entertainment.