Stella Descending: A Novel

Linn Ullmann

Anchor

In a saga sparkling with wisdom, wit and style, Linn Ullmann explores the emotional terrain of marriage and motherhood with wicked humour and a tender eye for human frailty. `Striking . . . a haunted, melancholy story of wandering parents and wayward children, and the ways they permeate one another's past and future' Sylvia Brownrigg, Independent `A wonderful novel . . . Ullmann has an extraordinary touch' Gaby Wood, Observer `A seriously well-written meditation on seduction, family, and the need to find a home. It ranges in style from carnivalesque debauchery to stone-cold, limpid realism, all apparently glittering with an insouciant application of fantasy' Herald

Before You Sleep

Literature & Fiction

Contemporary

Pan/Macmillan

Stella Descending

On a warm night in Oslo, Martin draws Stella into one of the risky games that have defined their ten years together: a balancing act on the edge of their rooftop, seven storeys up. Amid the shouts of horrified onlookers, Stella stumbles, falling for a moment into Martin's arms before plummeting to her death. Did he try to save her? This is the question that begins Linn Ullmann's transfixing tale of Stella: a jealous wife, compliant mistress, treasured friend, angelic nurse, unloved daughter, devoted mother, and - finally - a woman possessed of a secret now forever lost to the living.

On a warm summer night in Oslo, Martin draws Stella into one of the risky games that have defined their ten years together: a balancing act on the edge of their rooftop, seven stories up. Amid the shouts of horrified onlookers, Stella stumbles, falling for a moment into Martin's arms before plummeting to her death. (Did he try to save her?)So begins Linn Ullmann's transfixing tale of a jealous wife, compliant mistress, treasured friend, angelic nurse, unloved daughter, devoted mother - and finally, a woman possessed of a secret now forever lost to the living. As Stella's life unfolds in the recollections of those she has left beind, we observe the fabric of many unravelling lives. And as Stella herself bears witness from a place beyond death, we come to understand how precarious her life was behind its facade of loveliness and order. With a quiet power, STELLA DESCENDING gives us the backlit dailiness - and the dark metaphysical underworld - of life in a fabled metropolis. And in brilliantly evoking the loneliness that haunts all our intimacies, it becomes a fable of life everywhere.

Picador

Stella Descending Ome

Grace

Macmillan Distribution Ltd.

A Blessed Child

On a warm summer night in Oslo, Martin draws Stella into one of the risky games that have defined their ten years together: a balancing act on the edge of their rooftop, nine stories up. Amid the shouts of horrified onlookers, Stella stumbles, falling for a moment into Martin’s arms before plummeting to her death. (Did he try to save her?) So begins Linn Ullmann’s transfixing tale of Stella—jealous wife, forbearing lover, angelic nurse, unloved daughter, devoted mother, and finally, a woman possessed of a secret now for-ever lost to the living. As Stella’s life unfolds in the recollections of those she has left behind, we observe the fabric of many lives unraveling. And as Stella herself bears witness from a place beyond death, we come to understand how precarious her life was behind its facade of loveliness and order. With a quiet power, Stella Descending gives us the backlit dailiness—and the dark metaphysical underworld—of life in a fabled metropolis. And in brilliantly evoking the loneliness that haunts all our intimacies, it becomes a fable of life everywhere.

Literary

KNOPF

When Johan was a boy he bargained with Death, and in good time Death obligingly took his father. And when Johan was miserably married, Death kindly took his first wife, leaving him a tidy sum. But now, with the Reaper coming for him, Johan cries out for certainties, for control, for dignity. Linn Ullmann has written a haunting meditation on mortality that nonetheless pulses with the aching beauty of life. 
 Available only in Core 7.

Thorndike Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Linn Ullmann. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Linn Ullmann

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Linn Ullmann. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Stella Descending: A Novel

Before You Sleep

Stella Descending

Stella Descending

Stella Descending Ome

Grace

Grace

A Blessed Child

Stella Descending

Grace