Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
One morning in 2002, on an island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio tells her editor she's deleted her latest manuscript, a book called The Red Book of Farewells. Whatever that book was is gone, but in its place is this story of a life: her life. And the lives of those around her--family members, student radicals, actors, and lesbian lovers in underground bars. It's a story of leftist in-fighting, broken relationships, and finding new paths.
Pirkko Saisio's brilliant autobiographical novel, in Mia Spangenberg's tender translation, is a contemporary classic of lesbian desire and politics. Composed as a series of farewells--to her mother, girlfriends she thought she'd spend her life with, and finally her daughter--the novel guides readers through Finland in the late-twentieth century. It's a world where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined; queer love is an illegal force of creation and revolt; and a heart-to-heart conversation with the activist playwright Bertolt Brecht is a mere dream away. Playful and mysterious, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.
Synopsis
For fans of Tove Ditlevsen and Karl Ove Knausgaard, an enigmatic work of autofiction set in a time of leftist politics and criminalized sexuality.
Pirkko Saisio's autofictional novel, in Mia Spangenberg's tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening in a series of farewells--to her mother, to the idealism of youth, to friends and lovers, and finally to her grown daughter. The novel embeds readers in a delirious Finland, where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined, and where queer love, still a crime, thrives in underground bars. But then one morning in 2002, on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio informs her publisher that she's accidentally deleted her latest manuscript, The Red Book of Farewells. Playful and mysterious, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.
Synopsis
For fans of Claire-Louise Bennett and Eileen Myles, an enigmatic work of autofiction set in a time of leftist politics and criminalized sexuality.
Pirkko Saisio's autofictional novel, in Mia Spangenberg's tender translation, is a mesmerizing account of radical politics and sexual awakening in a series of farewells--to her mother, to the idealism of youth, to friends and lovers, and finally to her grown daughter. The novel embeds readers in a delirious Finland, where art and communist politics are hopelessly intertwined, and where queer love, still a crime, thrives in underground bars. But then one morning in 2002, on a remote island off the coast of Finland, the narrator Pirkko Saisio informs her publisher that she's accidentally deleted her latest manuscript, The Red Book of Farewells. Playful and mysterious, The Red Book of Farewells is a work that stoically embraces the small revolutions of moving on.