Tove Braathen

The Effect of Moonlight on the First Snow

Margot is in her late thirties when her life becomes undone. She enters a conflict with the performance-driven headmaster at the high school where she teaches, her husband leaves her for a younger woman, and due to her new found circumstances she is forced to relocate from the affluent neighbourhood in west Oslo to a remote part of Groruddalen in the east. In her new life she is experiencing the loneliness of closed communities, where everyone is an outsider. The area is filled with strange sights, from the alcoholics gathered around the forest bonfire to the heavily covered immigrant women, forcing Margot to recon with her own prejudices.

In the first floor apartment of Margot’s apartment building lives Vera. She is old, sick, and unable to walk. Slowly Margot and Vera begin to develop a relationship, and are able to communicate across the differences. Vera reveals a troubling secret from long ago, with Margot being the sole confidant she feels forced to take action.

The Effect of Moonlight on the First Snow is a sharp and humorous novel about two women, and the precariousness of life.