Description

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A brutally comic portrait of marriage, taken to extremes reminiscent of the work of Samuel Beckett and Thomas Bernhard.

Edwin Mortens is almost blind, but has good hearing; his wife Erna is hard of hearing, but can see perfectly. Edwin sits locked in his bathroom all day, every day, trying to liberate his mind from his body. The experiment is going relatively well: nearly all his bodily functions have ceased, his limbs are in a state of decay, and his digestive system is in the process of breaking down. "This body," he says, "is a sewer."

To pass the time, Edwin dedicates his days to chewing gum and screaming at his wife, on whom he is, nonetheless, entirely dependent; meanwhile, Erna's life, despite Edwin's constant abuse, revolves around her hideous husband. Edwin and Erna live in a state of perfect equilibrium--fueled by habit, cruelty, humiliation, and quite possibly love--until their building's young superintendent is called to replace a lightbulb in Edwin's bathroom, and the "Siamese twins" find themselves embroiled in a new and vicious struggle for power.

About the Author

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Stig Saeterbakken (1966 2012) was one of Norway s most acclaimed contemporary writers. His novels include Self-Control and Through the Night (also published by Dalkey Archive). Stokes Schwartz's translation work includes technical, historical, and literary pieces. He studied Scandinavian languages and literature--with a concentration in Norwegian--at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Minnesota, and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.