Laila Sognnæs Østhagen

Coneheart

Jenny’s wife suddenly announces that she wants to have children. Jenny then runs off, as she always does when things become difficult. When Jenny was little, she called herself Johnny, waited for a beard to grow, loved Line and ran about all day long. You were all we ever wanted, her mother told her. It is far too much to place on the only one they had, Jenny thinks.
Coneheart takes place in the course of one day in Oslo and is a novel about being inside out and lacking charm, about being different, about hitting and missing with pinecones and about dressing up in a way that girls do not dress up.

Forlaget Oktober, 2012
203 Pages

Praise:
“The dialogues give a casual impression, the prose is rhythmic and poetic. Symbolic lead motives are established. Parts of the text have a twisted, almost surreal character. Coneheart is a smart first novel.”
Stavanger Aftenblad

“Coneheart is about being different, self-contempt and jealousy, about “wallowing around in your own shit” and about the fear of change. When Jenny dishes out aphorisms with her direct and concrete interpretation of the world around her, when she is crabby and cross, it cheers up the reader … an astoundingly well written and solidly playful debut. Jenny has her eyes fixed both on the dizzying and the down to earth, and in this way a fine, black humour arises.”
Dag og Tid

“A sustained novel which explores love without resorting to clichés and conventions.”
5/6 , Trønder-avisa