Broken (original 2006; edition 2012)

What an interesting concept this was. An author looks out her window and sees a line of people, old, young, injured, a mother with a dead baby, and others outside her door. From this throng, a man presses forward and steps across her threshold. The author names him Alvar and thence begins his story. Alvar is the main character in her new novel, and he takes to visiting her in her home, questioning her motives in writing scenarios and people into his story. He wants his story to be memorable, wants to be memorable to her, the author. He reminds her to eat and look after her health, for without her, his story remains in limbo and he fades into obscurity.

This book is as much the story of the author's relationship with her character, Alvar, as it is the story of Alvar and how his life spirals out of his control when a young drug addict walks into the art gallery in which he works. ( )

A brave attempt to try something different, or an unnecessary deviation from the crime novel? It all depends on your point of view. I'd read one of Karin Fossum's books before, so I didn't expect something wholly conventional. The form took me a bit by surprise, though.

I found the dual narrative threads a bit distracting, so I put this down often during reading, before finally finishing the book. However, I admire the author's courage in trying something different. There's the same cool detachment I found in the novel I read before this, and also the same empathy. It's just expressed in a different form. ( )

I loved Fossum’s Black Seconds, so I expected to like this by default. The book’s concept, that a character is harassing the author to write about him and must face the story she presents to him, is definitely a bit indulgent. It feels like something she wrote while stuck on another project, something that probably should never have been published. But that wasn’t my problem with it. The main character, Alvar, is at first intrigued by the young, drug-addicted waif that wanders into the gallery where he works. Later, she just takes advantage of him.

Here is where I confess that I only made it about 3/4 of the way through the book and have no idea what happened in the end, because the more she pushed him and took advantage of him and the more he found himself unable to say no to her, the more uncomfortable it made me feel. Real, deep in my chest, bordering on anxiety uncomfortable. I guess you could consider it a plus that the author was able to invoke those sorts of feelings in me, but it really just meant that I had to put down the book. Maybe it all turned out okay in the end, and everyone got their due — I just don’t know. I’ll definitely continue to read Fossum’s Inspector Sejer series, but I’ll have to give anything like this a pass. ( )

I love Karin Fossum's novels, and pre-ordered this so I could read it as soon as possible. But it turns out to be the exception that proves the rule. In this novel, Fossum herself (or an unnamed novelist who speaks in the first person) is one of the central characters, growing more and more involved in a Pirandello-esque situation where her characters come alive, affecting the outcome of the conventional novel that is proceeding in parallel. If it sounds complex, it is. As a demonstration of writerly pyrotechnics, it works nicely, but I didn't enjoy it the way I have her other books. ( )