Heaven and Hell

“There are novels that make something inside you come awake, and make you want to keep it awake. Maybe that’s what a classic is: not only a work that endures but one that makes something endure in you—something that lasts even after you may have forgotten the whole story and the characters’ names. Such is the case with the Icelandic novelist Jón Kalman Stefánsson’s ‘Trilogy About the Boy’.”—Salvatore Scibona, New Yorker

In a remote fishing village, a boy and his best friend spend the lonely hours on shore reading and talking about poetry. When the friend, absorbed in a borrowed copy of Paradise Lost, forgets his oilskin one morning and the crew is unexpectedly caught at sea in a savage winter storm, tragedy strikes. Overwhelmed by grief—and his crewmates’ indifference to what has happened—the boy leaves the village, determined to return the book to its owner. The hardship and danger of the journey is of little consequence: he’s already resolved to join his friend in death. But when he reaches the town where he intends to end his days, he couldn’t have imagined the stories and lives he finds.

Navigating the depths of despair to celebrate the redemptive power of friendship, Heaven and Hell is an incandescent story of community, resilience, and love from one of Iceland’s most celebrated novelists.