3.5
The American Girl
ByPublisher Description
In 1969, a young girl makes a trip from Coney Island to the swampy coastland on the rural outskirts of Helsinki, Finland. There, her death will immediately become part of local mythology, furnishing boys and girls with fodder for endless romantic imaginings. Everyone who lives near the swamp dreams about Eddie de Wire, the lost American girl. . . . For both Sandra and Doris, two lonely, dreaming girls abandoned in different ways by their parents, this myth will propel them into their coming-of-age through mischievous role-playing games of love and death, in search of hidden secrets, the mysteries of the swamp, and the truth behind Eddie’s death. The girls construct their own world, their own language, and their own rules. But playing adult games has adult consequences, and what begins as two girls just striking matches leads to an inferno that threatens to consume them and tear their friendship apart.
Crime mystery and gothic saga, social study and chronicle of the late sixties and early seventies, a portrait of the psyche of young girls on the cusp of sexual awakening, The American Girl is a bewitching glimpse of the human capacity for survival and for self-inflicted wounds. Fagerholm is a modern-day heir to the William Faulkner heritage of family tragedy, with a highly musical and literary prose style that is rich with wit and literary allusions. The American Girl will teach you the meaning of trust as you give yourself entirely to the original storytelling style of Monika Fagerholm.
Crime mystery and gothic saga, social study and chronicle of the late sixties and early seventies, a portrait of the psyche of young girls on the cusp of sexual awakening, The American Girl is a bewitching glimpse of the human capacity for survival and for self-inflicted wounds. Fagerholm is a modern-day heir to the William Faulkner heritage of family tragedy, with a highly musical and literary prose style that is rich with wit and literary allusions. The American Girl will teach you the meaning of trust as you give yourself entirely to the original storytelling style of Monika Fagerholm.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThe American Girl Reviews
3.5
Katie.cat.books
Created over 5 years agoShare
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“Vapid. Multiple times and perspectives. Finnish-swedish.
Story: Eddie deWire is the American Girl, who recorded a song at Coney Island in New York and later drowned in a marsh in Finland. Bengt saw it. Doris heard it. And Doris and Sandra became obsessed with her after her death.
Language: This is a very linguistically twisted book. The times change from past to present, from one character to the next over paragraphs. Yes, it all connects and wraps up at the end. If the reader has the patience to get through over 450 pages. Most of the dialogue is artificial drivel. Quotes from songs, abstract meaningless and lies, hurt and naivete. At least one of the characters is a drama filled diva, so anything she says must be read with skepticism. That's a lot of skepticism for a 500 page book.
Characters: Eddie is the american girl, who is not actually American. She drowns, others witness her drowning, do nothing about it, which creates a big mystery to others, especially two young teenage girls. This is not a traditional book with main characters and side characters, but more of a cast ensemble production. Relatives, friends, neighbors, most one dimensional and most disturbed.
If you like Donna tartt, you'll love this. I couldn't stand it and am so glad it's over. I only finished it because it's for a book club. Wheres my next read, please?”
Allmygirlyobsessions
Created over 6 years agoShare
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Essi
Created over 13 years agoShare
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About Monika Fagerholm
Monika Fagerholm was born in 1961 and belongs to the Swedish-speaking community in Finland. Her much-praised first novel, Wonderful Women by the Sea, became one of the most widely translated Scandinavian literary novels of the mid-nineties. Two years later, it was made into a motion picture. In 1998, it was followed by the cult novel Diva, which won the Swedish Literature Society Award and Nyland’s Art Award. Her third novel, The American Girl, became a number-one best seller and won the premier literary award in Sweden, the August Prize, as well as the Aniara Prize and the Gothenburg Post Award.
Katarina E.Tucker was born in the United States and raised bilingually with English and Swedish. She holds a doctorate in Scandinavian Literature from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. In 2003, she won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Translation Prize for her translation of Sven Delblanc’s Jerusalem’s Night. After dividing her time between Europe and North America, she now resides in the Netherlands.
Katarina E.Tucker was born in the United States and raised bilingually with English and Swedish. She holds a doctorate in Scandinavian Literature from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. In 2003, she won the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Translation Prize for her translation of Sven Delblanc’s Jerusalem’s Night. After dividing her time between Europe and North America, she now resides in the Netherlands.
Other books by Monika Fagerholm
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