Kristín Eiríksdóttir; trans. Larissa Kyzer
A Fist or a Heart by Kristín Eiríksdóttir, translated by Larissa Kyzer, is the winner of the 2017 Icelandic Literary Prize, the 2018 Icelandic Women’s Literature Prize, was nominated for the 2019 Nordic Council Literature Prize, and was the recipient of several other awards.
The novel unfolds in the voice of Elín Jónsdóttir, a woman in her early 70s who leads a solitary existence in Reykjavik. She makes props for theatre productions and movies. She is asked to make props for a play written by Ellen Álfsdóttir, the young, illegitimate daughter of a famous writer. Their encounter stirs up Elín’s memories of the long ago past she would prefer to keep buried.
Possibly for maternal reasons that may have something to do with their first encounter when Ellen was just two years old, Elín develops a fascination for Ellen, begins stalking her, and observes her at home with her mother. Although generations apart, the two have much in common. They are both illegitimate with dysfunctional mothers and absent fathers, live on the margins of society, and are generally misfits. And although they say a few words to each other, they never connect in a meaningful way. The novel concludes with Ellen drifting in a fog of alcohol and drugs after her mother’s abandonment, and Elín slowly deteriorating into the abyss of dementia and memory loss.
The narrative alternates between Elín’s recollections of her past, including what she remembers of being sexually assaulted as a teenager, and Ellen’s backstory told in third person. The details are revealed slowly and intermittently. Very little happens in terms of plot, but the novel is a rich psychological exploration of the two main characters, capturing their loneliness and marginalization with poignancy and sensitivity.
An atmosphere of uncertainty permeates and is reflected in the title with fist suggesting violence and heart suggesting compassion. The ambiguity and unresolved issues maybe due to Elín’s unreliability as a narrator. How much of what she describes about Ellen is accurate, and how much is simply the fabrication of a mind on the brink of losing touch with reality? When a man mysteriously appears in her home and demands the few boxes her deceased grandmother left her, she doesn’t question his right to be there. She gives him the boxes only to find them mysteriously reappear in her home later. There is no explanation as to who he is, why he is there, or why he claimed the boxes in the first place.
Kristín Eiríksdóttir is a talented writer and well-deserving of the awards and accolades she has received. Her prose is lyrical and compelling with a haunting subtext of something gone awry. The fragmentary nature of Elín’s recollections and her obsession with Ellen keep one guessing as to how much is real, how much is due to the residual impact of the traumas she experienced, and how much is the product of her oncoming dementia. It is a credit to Kristín Eiríksdóttir’s skill as a writer that she is able to portray authentic characters and sustain interest in the narrative without providing clear answers.