Will and Testament cover art

Will and Testament

A Novel

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About this listen

A controversial best seller from one of Norway’s most intelligent and highly-regarded novelists

When a dispute over her parents’ will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled 20 years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favoritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as something very different - a final attempt to suppress the truth and a cruel insult to the grievously injured.

Will and Testament is a lyrical meditation on trauma and memory, as well as a furious account of a woman’s struggle to survive and be believed.

©2019 Vigdis Hjorth (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing Absurdist Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Women's Fiction
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It’s a wonderful book that takes you right inside the head of a clever, damaged, self-aware woman who is old enough to have lived a full life. Will be familiar to readers of Karl Ove Knaussgard, but Hjorth is much more concise and focused.

Gripping and intense

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As an adult survivor of a challenging childhood I found this book very special, no two situations are the same but I found myself saying “me too”. Vigdis writes with an empathy of the battles I have faced with myself and family members. It made me feel validated.

An amazing book

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A deep feeling exploration of what it is to have an elephant in the room whenever the family comes together; of deep, futile and impossible hurt, which can hardly ever be healed, but unfortunately a slow, dull read.

perceptive in exploring family rifts

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I thought the delivery of the narrator very difficult to listen to at first but as the story unfolds it makes complete sense as it is reflecting the turmoil and repetition in the mind of the character. The book became quite compelling.

Bear with it

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I think this may be one to read rather than listen to. It's like listening to a non-fiction book, just couldn't get into it.

Couldn't finish it

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