This is perfect. Ditlevsen's short stories are simple and yet so powerful. I recommended this book strongly on The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast several times, and I'm sure it will keep showing up.

These stories had the unique voice that can only be Tove’s. I love it so much. Each stories resonates her actual life which I only know from reading her memoirs. I will be reading her other work in the coming months. Thank you to the publisher for letting me reading it on here. :)

Tove said: Men - TRASH; Domesticity - OVER; Marriage - A TRAP; Parenthood - CANCELLED.

Bleak! And a great companion to The Copenhagen Trilogy for some third-person counterbalancing. The stories do tend to blend together, but it works in the sense that Ditlevsen was preoccupied with the mundanity of everyday existence, and her stories reflect her struggles.

Read if you like your stories to end with a person staring out of a window, full of longing.

Having read Tove Ditlevsen's recently translated metafictional account of her own life, I was familiar with her style and her themes. In these beautifully written if very grim realistic stories, the reader can recognize her chilly view of the world as she experienced it in mid-century Denmark. In these stories, she addresses married life with power and grim reality, and whether it is thanks to the translator or not, they flow even if the material is grim.

I feel it's become typical when a writer is "re-discovered" the way Tove was that there always be a huge push to re-issue anything and everything that can be found of theirs (this has happened with Eve Babitz, Anna Kavan, Natalie Ginzburg, so many more). The reception for Tove's trilogy was incredible, and rightfully so. I gobbled those up, and remained affected for days/weeks after. Which is why I felt a little disappointed with this collection. Most stories left me feeling a little underwhelmed, and made me question their inclusion, or the purpose in the collection. Perhaps it was the subject matter, or the preference here for the the third person over the first. Still, it's obvious Tove was a great talent. I look forward to the re-issue of Faces too.

Thanks for the e-galley!

A poignant collection of short stories that describes the inner turmoil of relationships. I enjoyed each and everyone. They made me think and feel.