Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors

Mirror, Shoulder, Signal

Dorthe Nors

It's not big on plot, but this quirky little story had me laughing and reading aloud snippets to the person I was next to. What starts out as a humorous tale subtly becomes something more philosophical. I felt such empathy with Sonja, a woman whose life has hit a rut; I was very sorry to lose her company at the end of the book.

Extract
She's lit another cigarette, her gaze rheumy, while Sonja's over forty and in two places at once. She's standing on a side street in a capital city that won't have anything to do with her, yet she's also far away in the landscape. She's grown up and playing the part, but she's also a child who doesn't want to learn her lesson, who won't adapt, won't be like the others and think what the others think, whatever that might be. She wants to get free, utterly free, and so she has to take flight, and it's as if, the moment she saw Jytte approaching, Sonja pressed an elevator button in her mind.
Parallels
  • This Should Be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle
  • All Grown Up by Jami Attenburg