Toxic by Helga Flatland

 

Toxic by Helga Flatland.

Translated from the Norwegian by Matt Bagguley.

Published 23rd May 2024 by Orenda Books.

From the cover of the book:

Shamed schoolteacher, Mathilde, moves to a dairy farm in the Norwegian countryside for an ‘easier life’, but she’s soon up to her old tricks … upending and unsettling the lives of two reclusive farmers. Exquisitely written, razor-sharp and simmering with an unexpected tension, Toxic marks the return of one of Norway’s finest writers…

When Mathilde is forced to leave her teaching job in Oslo after her relationship with eighteen-year-old Jacob is exposed, she flees to the countryside for a more authentic life.

Her new home is a quiet cottage on the outskirts of a dairy farm run by Andres and Johs, whose hobbies include playing the fiddle and telling folktales – many of them about female rebellion and disobedience, and seeking justice, whatever it takes.

But beneath the apparently friendly and peaceful pastoral surface of life on the farm, something darker and more sinister starts to vibrate and, with Mathilde’s arrival, cracks start appearing … everywhere.

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In Telemark, Norway, Johs splits his time between running the ancestral dairy farm with his brother Andres, and carrying on the family traditions of playing the fiddle and telling folklore tales. Somehow, he is never quite up to the mark in any of these duties, constantly overshadowed by the presence of his formidable mother around the farm, and the knowledge that he will never be able to fill the shoes of the hard drinking, charismatic grandfather he was named for.

In Oslo, teacher Mathilde has been forced to leave her job after engaging in a relationship with one of her eighteen-year-old pupils. Overshadowed in her own way by stories of the parents she never knew, Mathilde convinces herself she needs to get away from city life and become a novelist like her mother. She decides to rent a small cottage on Johs and Andres' dairy farm, where she tries to immerse herself in rural life, but instead becomes the catalyst for upheaval in the taut relationships of this dysfunctional family.

Set against the fearful times of the Covid-19 pandemic, Helga Flatland's Toxic takes unsettling family dramas to a whole new level of intensity, in the way only a Norwegian novelist can do. The novel unfurls through the voices of two discordant characters, dairy farmer Johs and city dweller Mathilde, beginning in delicious slow-burn country by establishing the lay of the land in their separate lives, as an intriguing study of dysfunctional family circumstances and how these shape behaviour. Flatland then brings their storylines crashing together, building on her beautifully written ground-work to take a dark turn, twisting the novel into an exquisite tale of emotional dissonance and betrayal that it is impossible to look away from. 

The sections of story are entitled with the names of musical chords that play cleverly on the fiddle-playing legacy that runs through Johs' family, but this is not the only theme Flatland weaves to pitch-perfect delight throughout. Notably, intergenerational relationships are used incredibly effectively to heighten the notes that hit hardest, sending you reeling and provoking the odd sardonic chuckle in turn; and there is some lovely contrasting of town and country landscape and lifestyle in the way the story plays out (some nice dairy farming trivia too). 

However, the most striking theme is that every layer of this literary masterpiece is about rewritten narratives - whether it be in the fact that the characters are the products of family expectations that have been coloured to hide uncomfortable truths; the way perspectives on the intimate relationships shift to offload responsibility; or in the lies practically everyone in this book tells themselves to excuse their behaviour. And everything is tied together with perhaps the most well-played trick of all - Flatland's spellbinding use of Nordic folklore to underpin her contemporary plot, flooding the story with hidden meaning around female disobedience crushed beneath a patriarchal boot.

This is not a comfortable read, in the way that the best literary novels often are. The characters are generally unlikeable; their attitudes are frequently challenging; and they act in ways which are appalling as much as they are entertaining. Flatland very deliberately uses them to force you to confront your own opinions about moral responsibility, guilt, gendered behaviour, and the way strong women are viewed by society too, so be prepared to have your thoughts provoked. But I would not have changed a carefully chosen word, a poignant passage, or any shade of meaning in that cracking title, on the way to the superb ending. I tip my hat to translator Matt Bagguley for preserving every ounce of Norwegian essence in his translation.

Toxic is available to buy now in paperback, ebook and audio formats. You support indie publishing by buying direct from Orenda Books HERE.

Thank you to Orenda Books for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and to Random Things Tours for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Helga Flatland is already one of Norway’s most awarded and widely read authors. 

Born in Telemark, Norway, in 1984, she made her literary debut in 2010 with the novel Stay If You Can, Leave If You Must, for which she was awarded the Tarjei Vesaas’ First Book Prize. She has written four novels and a children’s book and has won several other literary awards. 

Her fifth novel, A Modern Family (her first English translation), was published to wide acclaim in Norway in August 2017, and was a number-one bestseller. The rights have subsequently been sold across Europe and the novel has sold more than 100,000 copies. 

End of Life was published in 2020 and is currently topping bestseller lists in Norway.