Hjorth (Long Live the Post Horn!) delivers a gripping tale of obsession about an artist and her frayed relationship with her family. Johanna, nearing 60, hasn't spoken to her estranged mother or sister since her father's death many years ago. Now, recently widowed, she returns to Oslo after decades spent living in the U.S. Her adult son lives in Copenhagen, and a retrospective of her work is soon to launch in Norway. While working on new pieces for the show, Johanna decides to call her mother, who doesn't answer. Johanna then begins to construct a fantasy of her mother's daily life while simultaneously ratcheting up her attempts at interaction. She hides outside her mother's building, follows her from a distance, and sifts through her trash. Johanna calls and texts, yet she continues to receive no response, and her fixation on breaking through swells along with memories of a rocky childhood and her mother's own unhappiness. Hjorth keenly walks the line between Johanna's concern and mania; as Johanna's hang-ups occasionally spin out of control, they remain true to the character. This accomplished novel is hard to shake. (Oct.)

A Norwegian artist probes the rift between her mother and herself. Johanna is a widowed painter nearly 60 years old, her son grown and with a child of his own, who's been estranged from her mother and sister for nearly three decades. When asked to prepare a retrospective of her work in Oslo, her hometown, Johanna uproots her life and moves back there. Rather than focus on painting, however, Johanna dwells on how she once again lives in the same city as her mother and sister. One night, after a few glasses of wine, Johanna calls her mother; when she doesn't pick up, Johanna begins to fill the silence between them with her own best guesses of her mother's thoughts. "I use words to create my image of you," she thinks. The novel follows Johanna as she recalls her childhood and catalogs the events that culminated in her estrangement--such as her decision to leave her first husband, Thorleif, and abandon her family-sanctioned legal studies to marry her art teacher, Mark, and pursue painting in America. Johanna's obsession quickly escalates from that phone call to full-blown stalking. As she sifts through her mother's garbage and lurks on the stairs of her mother's apartment building, she's compelling in her desire to understand what it means to be a fully grown woman and yet still need your mother. The novel's strength lies in its deft use of psychological analysis as it looks at this relationship through one lens after another. While it's full of metaphorical hauntings, it's most plaintive in Johanna's desire to have a conversation with her mother. The novel falters in its resolution, but Johanna's intelligence and emotion still captivate. Like a wounded animal in her need and grief, Johanna cries, "I made myself homeless and homeless I am, and my anguish will not be stilled. Hailstones lash the window and teeth gnaw at the walls, steel knuckles bang on doors, paws maul, creatures sigh, wanting to get in, the terror arrives, the great darkness rises from the forest and the sky hangs low over me like a stone." A darkly insightful examination of mother-daughter relationships that captivates with the suspense of a thriller. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.