2024
"I promise. I'll give you Edvin, as he was. But first I have to tell you about the end. "
"This summer is going to be different," she told her children. They travelled to the mountains while her husband remained in the city to renovate their apartment.
Their son Edvin would be turning seven after the vacation and was looking forward to finally having his own room. Two days before they were set to leave the cabin, Edvin got a headache. A few hours later, he was dead.
A helpless family is left behind. What really happened to Edvin? Where is he now, and how can they manage to continue with their lives after this?
Turn Around is written by a mother trying to find her way through the chaos the year after her son died, and an attempt to write about who Edvin really was.
“One early morning I woke up with a sudden pain in my chest. I had been dreaming. How I was rummaging in the ground, looking for a place where Edvin was not dead, or for a place where they did not know he was dead.
I pondered this for a while, and then I realized. I could travel to the end of the world if I wanted. Where I was, Edvin was dead, because I was carrying his death with me. "
Turn Around is one of Norla's chosen focus titles this spring.
Important about grief, magnificent about love. Turn Around leaves the reader with a deep feeling of love. The road to it is almost unbearable.
Some books really have a deep affect on you - like when a mother writes about the very worst thing that can happen: Losing a child. Turn Around conveys a raw grief, but at the same time manages to draw the reader into intense reflections.
A powerful, heartbreaking, warm, wise, uplifting and thought-provoking book about a grief that is almost unbearable. Turn Around is a moving, devastating book written for anyone who’s ever loved someone.
The tremendous strength in Turn Around comes from its ability to articulate the chaotic, unfiltered grief, from the first shock to a diminished version of everyday life. At the same time, it also looks at the bigger picture, reflecting on what a child's death does to those left behind.
Therese Tungen
Det norske Samlaget
