I've got my reading year off to a good start with my first book of 2023 - Laura Waddell

I track my reading in a notebook - or else I’d forget half of it - and the first entry for 2023 is the novel A House in Norway by Vigdis Hjorth.

I’ve been intrigued by Hjorth’s writing since I stumbled upon Will and Testament in Dublin’s Winding Stair Bookshop - oh, the joy of a well curated bookshop with unexpected, delicious morsels within. Will and Testament is a curious and very good short novel about adult siblings quarrelling over a property inheritance. It received much media attention in its native Norway and sparked a debate on ‘reality fiction’ after Hjorth’s own sister wrote a competing book on the same quasi autobiographical events of the plot - but the author, understandably, is done talking about it.Long Live the Post Horn! was the next I encountered - part of the pile of books, mostly novels, I panic bought in a dash to Waterstones before everything shuttered in spring 2020 - and is about a mid thirties woman who works for the Norwegian postal service as it is undergoing some internal turmoil about an EU directive. The same interest in bureaucracy, community and national identity is present in A House in Norway, translated also by Charlotte Barslund. Don’t think any of this sounds dry - the everyday events of the plot unspool evenly, in a way that reminds me slightly of Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport.In A House in Norway, protagonist Alma is a divorced textiles artist who makes a living from commissions from trade unions and marching bands who need banners, and public arts bodies who want conceptual pieces that drive Hjorth half mad thinking about how to approach. Her house is somewhat rundown but in a pleasant area; adjoining it is a smaller property which Hjorth rents out. When a Polish family moves in, Alma’s sense of herself as a good citizen, of a welcoming nation, is challenged. Small awkward interactions over the post or hot water usage become occasions from which Alma draws negative conclusions; stereotypes creep into her thinking. She has a sneaking suspicion she is being taken advantage of; she begins to resent the signs of their presence - toys in the garden, Christmas decorations stored in the shed.Interactions between the houses become more fraught, as on this small domestic stage tensions around immigration, resource sharing, ownership, personal and national responsibilities play out compellingly.