Hilde Rød-Larsen

Diamond Nights

Agnete is in control. Her days have a set rhythm, her body obeys commands, she has a job that she enjoys. She is married for the second time and has a daughter that is on the brink of adulthood. Then one day, her hair starts to fall off. On an early autumn morning her husband goes on a long work trip abroad that will keep him away until Christmas. She is alone in their Oslo flat with her daughter. Agnete has the time and space to try to find the words for what her body has been trying to tell her for a while.

In flashes and fragments, she looks back at herself as a young student in London. At how she longed to be seen and loved for who she truly was. At how for all those years she got lost in a darkness disguised as light.

Diamond Nights is a story about a life, seen through the prism of a toxic relationship that started when the narrator was young and lasted for many years. It is a novel that probes into the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves – stories that enable us to live our lives, and stories that lead us astray.