When Mathilde is forced to leave her teaching job in Oslo after her relationship with eighteen-year-old Jacob is exposed, she flees to the countryside for a more authentic life.
Her new home is a quiet cottage on the outskirts of a dairy farm run by Andres and Johs, whose hobbies include playing the fiddle and telling folktales – many of them about female rebellion and disobedience, and seeking justice, whatever it takes.
But beneath the apparently friendly and peaceful pastoral surface of life on the farm, something darker and more sinister starts to vibrate and, with Mathilde’s arrival, cracks start appearing … everywhere.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for Toxic by Helga Flatland today and I'm delighted to have an extract to share with you, as well as my review. Many thanks to Orenda Book and Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in the tour and for my advance copy of the novel.
I have to admit to having mixed feelings when I started reading Toxic; Mathilde's affair with Jacob, her student, made me very uncomfortable and I wasn't sure how I would feel about a main character whose actions are so obviously wrong. However, Helga Flatland's writing kept me turning the pages, despite my reservations and while Mathilde's conduct is indefensible, this is a compelling novel in which all the characters are flawed, complicated individuals and although I never particularly liked any of them, I was intrigued to see how their toxic, complex dynamics would eventually play out.
The narrative is shared between Mathilde and Johs, a farmer from the Telemark region of Norway. In the first part of the book, Mathilde is still living in Oslo and initially in an all-consuming relationship with Jacob. While uncomfortable reading, it is nevertheless fascinating to try to understand why a woman in her position should not only be tempted by a student, but also give in to those desires. As we learn a little more about her upbringing, it becomes clear that she has questions about her past and especially her parents which have never been fully answered. Meanwhile, in the countryside, Johs now lives in the main house at the farm he owns with his brother, Andres but it's immediately obvious that their domineering grandfather, Johannes' control over their household persists even after his death.
After Mathilde moves to Telemark, leasing the small cottage that the brothers' grandparents lived in for their final years, the respective shortcomings of the characters are gradually brought to the forefront. It's not just Mathilde, Johs and Andres whose issues are examined, and the relationship between past and present is a constant theme. The maelstrom of emotions evoked simmers with a sense of foreboding but Helga Flatland tempers the toxicity which runs throughout the book with refined wit.
Set against the background of the Covid pandemic, the fear and ennui engendered during that strange time clearly affects the characters to a greater or lesser extent, but although this is a contemporary novel, the folklore behind some of the songs that the imperious Johannes used to play on his fiddle is also cleverly woven into the storyline. The juxtaposition between the frequently misogynistic tales of long ago and the way women are viewed here is particularly striking, most notably regarding Johannes' treatment of his wife, and the way in which Mathilde, as troublesome as she may be, is pursued, used and vilified.
Mark Bagguley's translation is seamlessly unobtrusive, ensuring this English language version flows naturally throughout. Toxic is a slow burning novel but Helga Flatland's exploration of families is perceptively compulsive and deliciously dark; I suspect the ending may be divisive but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Highly recommended.
Read on for an extract from Toxic to tempt you further...
When I enter her flat, Mum is sitting at the kitchen table in front of her PC, drinking tea and reading the online news, its red capital letters glowing at me.
‘How was Tromsø?’ she asks without taking her eyes off the screen.
‘It was nice,’ I say, ‘but it’s good to be home again.’
She doesn’t ask any more about it, fortunately.
‘Ten people in Norway are infected with this Chinese virus now,’ she says.
‘I saw that,’ I say, taking a mug from the cupboard, then pouring some tea from the pot and sitting down opposite her.
‘Weren’t you on the plane with a bunch of Chinese?’ she asks.
‘No, they were Japanese, Mum,’ I say.
She breathes in and stays quiet for a bit too long.
‘Are you about to say it’s the same thing?’ I ask, laughing.
‘You’re so stupid,’ says Mum, taking off her reading glasses and looking at me. ‘My God, you look an awful lot like your mother today.’
Her eyes well up with tears, which she dabs at exaggeratedly. Mum, who is actually the sister of my biological mother, took custody of me thirty years ago when I was four, after both my parents died in a car accident. I only have vague memories of them, sensing them occasionally when I’m half asleep, or reminded by a smell or a sound or a touch. Mum remembers them, of course, especially her sister, the grief permanently at the forefront of her mind. It has become a project, a lifestyle, a personality trait, to mourn her. And by extension to put her on a pedestal; no one can live up to the image Mum has created of my mother, least of all me. Over the years I have realised, with a degree of sadness, but also with relief, that my mother was more than an exceptionally gifted saint. Nevertheless, it is this exalted impression of her that lingers.
Mum has been determined to bring me up in a way she is convinced my parents would have. There have been classical piano lessons, books she would never have read herself, and trips to the theatre and opera. Her own interest in art is supposedly limited, ‘I’m more of a pragmatist,’ she’ll say coquettishly. And I’ll often point out how that isn’t necessarily a contradiction, only to be dismissed: ‘Your mother was the artist in our family,’ she says. But it’s just her way of protecting her own artistic ambitions; as a child I once found a whole box of watercolours bearing her initials under her bed, and I remember how beautiful and magical the paintings were, but I never saw them again, and I never dared ask about them.
I have often accused Mum, during some of our uglier arguments, of adorning herself with grief, of using it, of abusing it, of hiding in it, and I still stand by much of this, but what she has never adorned herself with – which really would have been something to flaunt – is the unwavering and dedicated care she has shown me, all the help given and effort she has made.
‘Are you worried?’ I say now, nodding towards the news stories on the computer screen.
‘No. I doubt it’ll really turn into anything,’ says Mum
Toxic is published by Orenda Books, it can be ordered directly from their website, further purchasing links can be found here.
Follow the blog tour, details are below.
Helga Flatland is one of Norway’s most awarded and widely read authors. Born in Telemark, Norway, in 1984, she made her literary debut in 2010 with the novel Stay If You Can, Leave If You Must, for which she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Book Prize. She has written four novels and a children’s book and has won several other literary awards. Her fifth novel, A Modern Family, was published to wide acclaim in Norway in August 2017, and was a number-one bestseller. The rights have subsequently been sold across Europe and the novel has sold more than 100,000 copies. A Modern Family marked Helga’s first English publication when it was released in 2019, achieving exceptional critical acclaim and sales, and leading to Helga being dubbed the ‘Norwegian Anne Tyler’. One Last Time is her second book to be translated into English (by Rosie Hedger), and published in 2021.
About the Translator
Matt Bagguley grew up in the UK Midlands before moving to Oslo in 2001. Originally a musician and designer, he now works as a full-time translator of Norwegian to English and has translated a range of titles within publishing and film, including Joachim Trier’s Oscar-nominated comedy-drama The Worst Person in the World, Simon Stranger’s historical novel Keep Saying Their Names, and Nora Dåsnes’s graphic novel Cross My Heart and Never Lie, which recently won the Stonewall Book Award.
Comments
Post a Comment