A valuable read about mental health
★★★★☆ 1/2 – CALSPIE: 8.93
Title: What Kingdom
Author: Fine Gråbøl
Translator: Martin Aiken
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Keywords: mental health / translated / Danish
First Published: 2021 – to be published in English on 16 April 2024 by Archipelago
Edition: eARC, courtesy of Netgalley and the publisher
FROM THE BLURB: “I’m not inarticulate, but I leave language to the room around me,” says Fine Gråbøl’s nameless narrator as she dreams of furniture flickering to life in the room she occupies at a temporary psychiatric care unit for young adults.
***
I trust Archipelago to put out interesting books and this one (translated from Danish) was definitely that and more.
Gråbøl lets the reader be in the head of a person that struggles with mental health issues and is living in a psychiatric care unit with other young people. The writing is scattered and it really makes you feel like you are as scattered as the person whose brain you’re in. I think the strength of this novel is that it humanizes mental health issues. Both for ‘normal’ people to understand better and for people that might recognise themselves in the protagonist.
The way the author manages to put quite traumatic events into the narrative that make you go ‘oh, ok’ is quite something. It’s not sentimental, even if my heart hurt for the narrator when I stopped to think what was actually being discussed and what they were going through.
I know I will be recommending this book to people around me. Maybe not everyone, but I have some people in mind that I know will appreciate the writing and the subject.
If the subject appeals to you, I would highly recommend picking this one up. I will be getting myself and a friend a copy.
4.5 out of 5 stars
***
CALSPIE: 8.93
- Characters: 9
- Ambience: 9.5
- Language: 9
- Story: 8.5
- Pacing: 9
- Interest: 8.5
- Enjoyment: 9
Lola Et La Vie 