Fading Light
Fading light
How do I go about describing this time? The small pockets of time where there were no other witnesses: It’s these I want to pick up, like jellyfish, and hold to the light. See the filaments inside.
Johanne rents a room in a white house in the countryside. Almost without noticing, she slips into a relationship with Mikael, the man who lives there. It develops into a love lasting a lifetime. With the relationship comes Mikael’s daughter, his ex-wife, and the characteristic landscape surrounding them. Seventeen years later, Johanne sits in the house alone, beginning to pen down their story as the days grow shorter and autumn turns to winter.
Fading Light is a novel about the cycles of the female body, about the fear of losing the one you love, and about appreciating the here-and-now fully; a delicate and powerful exploration of the threads that tie us to a place and to each other.
Foreign sales:
Denmark, Turbine
Germany, Suhrkamp/Insel
«Vego’s sentences feel as though they are wrought by someone in full control of the often unruly material that is language. […] Vego’s pursuit is atmosphere, not suspense. However, the metaphysics of this is an effectful reminder of how our emotions and experiences charge the rooms we live in, how our houses indeed house our happiness and grief. As Thornfield Hall is described in Jane Eyre: Every home is a “shrine of memory”. Fading Light ought to be read as a book about combatting grief by worshipping at this shrine. The image Vego conjures is as truthful as it is melancholic: What we once had, we lose quietly, almost unnoticeably: “I hardly bleed any longer. The only thing leaking out of me is dust.»
«Danish-Norwegian Kristin Vego was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas Debut Prize for her debut collection of short stories, Look Your Last on All Things Lovely, in 2021. When she now publishes her first novel, she lets the stringency and concentration of the short story form carry over. […] Vego’s way of conveying and putting feelings into words is through lovely, almost lyrical images that feels like they are experienced through the body.»
«… a finely tuned story about love and longing.»
«A remarkably good novel. […] especially the ability to write forth a characteristic atmosphere and mood, a mellow elegy of a time and a relationship that has faded to dust, makes an impact. Descriptions of the ways that humans and nature interact is another literary vein that makes Vego’s novel stand out.»
«Hitting the nail on the head with her first novel. […] In her first novel, Danish-Norwegian Kristin Vego (32) demonstrates an unmistakable talent for both atmosphere and suspense. Fading Light is packed with effortless literary references as well as gorgeous metaphors […] Melancholy, absolutely, but Kristin Vego’s descriptions of passing time and changing seasons are more than anything brimming with beauty.»