A review of “Clearing Out” in 100 words by Catherine Stover
I have never read a book like this one. The author tells us about characters she is inventing for a novel while she tells us about her own life. She skillfully braids fact with fiction while providing two complementary stories. Wow! I salute her! Helene Uri is a Norwegian author of 30 books. In an interview, she said she didn’t want to write autobiography, but this book couldn’t have been written any other way. Her mother died while she was inventing a story about a woman whose father died. The stories resonate with each other, increasing the power of the book.
Work cited:
Uri, Helene. Clearing Out. Translated by Barbara Sjoholm, Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2019, p. 185.