It will always be Johannes and Ingeborg. She is the fiery servant girl on the farm that he is set to inherit. But when his father dies, he lets his brother take over and finds a place of his own, a place just for the two of them.
The future seems secure; generations can follow as they always have. But nothing turns out as they envisioned. The farm is forcibly sold, and Ingeborg’s darker sides begin to surface. Johannes must be the one to hold everything together. But why doesn’t the child come? Why does he not have a son?
My Time in These Forests is a powerful, captivating, and richly woven life story. It is a novel about love and belonging, about children and lineage, and about who one becomes when everything has been taken away.
This novel is about a full life. Just think of John Williams long-time unrecognized novel Stoner, or Robert Seethaler's lovely little novel A whole life, where the authors show us the big things in the little life. In my eyes, My time in these forests is Gaute’s best novel to date.