The Rift
Ellen and Maria’s father has passed away, and left them to inherit the family’s summer home in the archipelago. A house with its history preserved in boxes and wardrobes like archaeological layers. The two sisters live fundamentally different lives and don’t get along very well. Maria lives in Stockholm, a single mother of 5-year-old Dag, working at a home for elderly. She and her son spend almost every vacation at her father’s house, or with her mother in Spain. Ellen, on the other hand, is single and travels the world as a business consultant. Ellen has money, freedom, and spends her holidays elsewhere, with other people. Their relationship is one of pre-determined exchanges of phrases and repressed emotions.
Now, for the first time in many years, the sisters are to spend a summer together, to clean out the house and make it ready for sale. While doing so, they are confronted with all their similarities and differences, all their jealousy and longing. For Maria it feels as if Ellen always has the upper hand, the preferential right of interpretation, with her three years’ seniority, her financial independence, her perfect body and perfectly fitting clothes. How all Maria’s memories weigh like nothing compared to Ellen’s cost estimates and logic. She only has one thing that outdoes Ellen’s world: her son. The house is the bond between them, a security in existence, despite the constant reminder it serves about the past.
On the island of their childhood summers, where every place and item are charged with memories and meanings, everything is brought to a head. The Rift, Agnes Lidbeck´s second novel is a strikingly precise depiction of two sisters, examining the complexity of their relationship to each other and to those closest. And once again, Agnes Lidbeck graces us with an unforgettable psychological portrait.
Agnes Lidbeck made her sensational breakthrough with the literary triptych Supporting Act (2017), The Rift (2018) and At a Loss (2019), and the bestselling poetry collection From (2018, Ellerströms), securing her a position as one of the most prominent voices in contemporary Swedish literature. All My Love is her fifth novel.
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About the book
Ellen and Maria’s father has passed away, and left them to inherit the family’s summer home in the archipelago. A house with its history preserved in boxes and wardrobes like archaeological layers. The two sisters live fundamentally different lives and don’t get along very well. Maria lives in Stockholm, a single mother of 5-year-old Dag, working at a home for elderly. She and her son spend almost every vacation at her father’s house, or with her mother in Spain. Ellen, on the other hand, is single and travels the world as a business consultant. Ellen has money, freedom, and spends her holidays elsewhere, with other people. Their relationship is one of pre-determined exchanges of phrases and repressed emotions.
Now, for the first time in many years, the sisters are to spend a summer together, to clean out the house and make it ready for sale. While doing so, they are confronted with all their similarities and differences, all their jealousy and longing. For Maria it feels as if Ellen always has the upper hand, the preferential right of interpretation, with her three years’ seniority, her financial independence, her perfect body and perfectly fitting clothes. How all Maria’s memories weigh like nothing compared to Ellen’s cost estimates and logic. She only has one thing that outdoes Ellen’s world: her son. The house is the bond between them, a security in existence, despite the constant reminder it serves about the past.
On the island of their childhood summers, where every place and item are charged with memories and meanings, everything is brought to a head. The Rift, Agnes Lidbeck´s second novel is a strikingly precise depiction of two sisters, examining the complexity of their relationship to each other and to those closest. And once again, Agnes Lidbeck graces us with an unforgettable psychological portrait.
