Wait, Blink

Full of the playfulness that drew acclaim for her story collection Knots, Gunnhild Øyehaug's first novel to be translated into English is a jolt of desire and imagination, romance and regret: a fable about what it means to own up to the intractable weirdness of being alive. Sigrid is a young literature student trying to find her own voice, but when she falls in love with an older, established author, she finds herself overwhelmed by his ideas and lifestyle. Trine, an outrageous performance artist, has recently and reluctantly become a mother, but is finding it increasingly difficult to balance the care of her child with her outsized ambitions. Linnea is an aspiring director scouting filming locations in Copenhagen, but her hopelessly smitten producer already knows that this movie will never be made. Written from a lively God's-eye view, darting in and out of these and other characters' stories at will, and painting a world that is both frightening and joyously ridiculous, Wait, Blink traces the absurd collisions and intersections of people who may never, in reality, meet. Filled with wild associations, quotations, coincidences, fantasies, and jokes, it tramples on traditional storytelling in ways that are both hilarious and profound.