The Ferryman and His Wife
by Frode Grytten
GENRE: Contemporary Fiction, Reflective, Slow-Paced
Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping onto his beloved boat.
His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge - from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.
Winner of the prestigious Brage Prize, and considered to be Grytten's long-awaited masterpiece, The Ferryman and His Wife is the story of a quiet, yet utterly profound, life told in reverse. Timeless and absorbing, this is a novel about what we take with us - those moments that might seem insignificant as they happen but prove to be the most meaningful, in the end.
Author Biography
Frode Grytten (b. 1960) made his debut in 1984 with the poetry collection Start. Since then he has written novels, short stories, poems and children’s books. Songs of the Beehive won Norway’s national book award, the Brage, and was shortlisted for the Nordic Council Literary Prize. Floating Bear (2005) won the Riverton Prize and Rooms by the Ocean, Rooms by the Sea (2007) won the New Norwegian Literary Prize and the Melsom Prize. In 2023, Grytten published his first novel in 10 years, The Day That Nils Vik Died. The book won great acclaim and went on to win the Brage Prize. - Oslo Literary Agency
Reviews
Booklist
Grytten’s first novel, translated into English from the author's native Norwegian, is a meditative, ethereal journey following Nils Vik as he sets sail across the fjord to the sea on a final journey to once again be with his wife, Marta. As he drifts along, many ghosts come out to discuss Nils' life, from friends, family, and Nils' wife to his eternally faithful dog, whom he converses with throughout. As Nils reflects using his detailed logbook, he reveals a life well-lived, one where his ferryman vocation enabled him to meet and impact so many lives, and he basks in the quiet joy he feels about the successes of his children. He considers his long marriage to Marta, their tribulations and joys, and her slow death. As in George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), ghosts guide Nils to understand his many blessings and provide closure to relationships with estranged friends and family. This is a taut, captivating, and deeply moving exploration of the universal consideration of how to live a good life. -- Alexander Moran (Reviewed 11/1/2025) (Booklist, vol 122, number 5)
Publisher's Weekly
The devastating English-language debut from Grytten concerns a Norwegian man who wakes up one rainy November morning in his house on a fjord knowing it will be the day he dies. Nils Vik’s knowledge of his fate is not explained, but he’s resigned to it as he prepares to take his ferry boat out to sea (“What do you take with you when you know you’re not coming back?” Grytten writes). His wife, Marta, died of a stroke some time earlier, and he’s lonely and melancholy. At sea, on what turns out to be a Dante-esque voyage, he’s joined by the deceased family dog, Luna, as well as the ghosts of passengers he once ferried to and from his village. In addition to these spectral visitations, Nils reflects on other passengers, including a bloodthirsty cop named Trygve, from whom he rescued Luna. Nils also recalls meeting Marta for the first time, and how he instantly fell in love with her for “the way she tucked her hair behind her head.” As the journey progresses and more sad and happy memories arise, Grytten skillfully weaves his wistful protagonist’s life story without ever leaning on sentimentality. This will linger long in readers’ minds. (Nov.) --Staff (Reviewed 09/08/2025) (Publishers Weekly, vol 272, issue 34, p)
Library Journal
/* Starred Review */ Nils Vik knows that this day, November 18, will be his last when he notices telltale drops of blood on his pillowcase and a shade of pink in the toilet bowl. Nevertheless, the ferry operator readies his vessel for its usual route along the fjord in western Norway. Along the way, his dog Luna, who died 25 years ago, joins him. On route, Nils picks up many of his former passengers, now dead: Nils's former apprentice, a teenager escaping from an abusive family; an American photographer who fled to Norway from Vietnam; the midwife with whom Nils shared a glass of cognac after each birth. All the while, Nils is looking out for the person he most wants to reunite with—his late wife, Marta. The character of Nils conveys patience, wisdom, kindness, and love in a narrative that inevitably brings to mind the Greek myth of Charon, ferrying dead souls across the Rivers of Acheron and Styx to Hades. VERDICT Winner of Norway's highest literary award, this is Grytten's first major work to be translated into English. Against the harsh and beautiful Norwegian landscape backdrop, he reveals the depth and complexity of ordinary lives in this outstanding novel, without even the briefest descent into sentimentality. --Jacqueline Snider (Reviewed 08/01/2025) (Library Journal, vol 150, issue 8, p58)
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returns, alone, to the crypt several times to hold his boy's body.
From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state--called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo--a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.
The Lantern of Lost Memories
by Sanaka Hiiragi
This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaki, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard.
Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance—one last time—to see their entire life flash before their eyes via Mr. Hirasaki's "spinning lantern of memories."
We meet Hatsue, a ninety-two year old woman who worked as a nursery teacher, the rowdy Waniguchi, a yakuza overseer in his life who is also capable of great compassion, and finally Mitsuru, a young girl who has died tragically young at the hands of abusive parents.
Sorting through the many photos of their lives, Mr. Hirasaki also offers guests a second gift: a chance to travel back in time to take a photo of one particular moment in their lives that they wish to cherish in a special way.
Full of charm and whimsy, The Lantern of Lost Memories will sweep you away to a world of nostalgia, laughter, and love.
The House of Broken Angels
by Luis Alberto Urrea
Prizewinning and bestselling writer Luis Urrea has written his Mexican coming-to-America story and his masterpiece. Destined to sit alongside other classic immigrant novels, The House of Broken Angels is a sprawling and epic family saga helmed by patriarch Big Angel. The novel gathers together the entire De La Cruz clan, as they meet for the final birthday party Big Angel is throwing for himself, at home in San Diego, as he nears the end of his struggle with cancer and reflects on his long and full life.
But when Big Angel's mother, Mama America, approaching one hundred, dies herself as the party nears, he must plan her funeral as well. There will be two family affairs in one weekend: a farewell double-header. Among the attendants is his half-brother and namesake, Little Angel, who comes face to face with the siblings with whom he shared a father but not, as the weekend proceeds to remind him, a life.
This story of the De La Cruzes is the story of what it means to be a Mexican in America, to have lived two lives across one border. It is a tale of the ravaging power of death to shore up the bits of life you have forgotten, whether by choice or not. Above all, this finely wrought portrait of a deeply complex family and the America they have come to call home is Urrea at his purest and best. Teeming with brilliance and humor, authentic at every turn, The House of Broken Angels cements his reputation as a storyteller of the first rank.