Wilful Disregard
A Novel About Love
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
'Gripped me like an airport read . . . perfect.' Lena Dunham
'Lena Andersson's Wilful Disregard is a story of the heart written with bracing intellectual rigor. It is a stunner, pure and simple.' Alice Sebold, author of The Lovely Bones
Winner of the August Prize 2013
On the day that Ester Nilsson, a poet and a sensible person in a sensible relationship, meets renowned artist Hugo Rask, her rational world begins to unravel. Leaving her boyfriend and her past behind, Ester embarks on what is sure to be the greatest love story of her life.
It's a shame no one else agrees.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this slender novel of psychological and romantic obsession, winner of Sweden's August Prize, Ester Nilsson is a Swedish poet of eight slim volumes who lives in Stockholm with her lover of seven years, Per. A woman who inhabits a seriously self-regulated world, Ester is happy to be invited to give a lecture on Hugo Rask, an artist. At the event, for which he is in attendance, Ester finds herself instantly taken with Hugo. Next, she is asked to write an article about the artist, which brings her further into his orbit and causes her breakup with Per. She and Hugo begin spending time together and having sex on a few separate occasions. Throughout it all, Hugo retains his emotional distance from Ester, who becomes more and more obsessed with him. In fact, the more indifferently he treats her, the more Ester convinces herself that she is totally in love with him. Over the course of 15 months, we see Ester repeatedly try to reach out to a distant Hugo. He, in turn, thoughtlessly responds to her just enough to give her the hope that one day her love for him will be returned. Andersson's stainless steel prose and forensic dissection of Ester's helplessness almost render her story dramatically pointless and it will be enjoyable only to the reader who relishes spending time with a character embroiled in such unending masochistic misery.
