Will and Testament
Vigdis Hjorth
Narrated By: Nano Nagle
Duration: 8 hours and 33 minutes
What to expect
A controversial bestseller from one of Norway’s most intelligent and highly regarded novelists
When a dispute over her parents’ will grows bitter, Bergljot is drawn back into the orbit of the family she fled twenty years before. Her mother and father have decided to leave two island summer houses to her sisters, disinheriting the two eldest siblings from the most meaningful part of the estate. To outsiders, it is a quarrel about property and favoritism. But Bergljot, who has borne a horrible secret since childhood, understands the gesture as something very different—a final attempt to suppress the truth and a cruel insult to the grievously injured.
Will and Testament is a lyrical meditation on trauma and memory, as well as a furious account of a woman’s struggle to survive and be believed.
Genre
Family life fiction, Family life fiction, Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary, Fiction: general and literary
Listen to a sample
“Hypnotic. Hjorth works finely parsed and brilliant variations on her unrelenting theme of familial mistrust and misunderstanding.”
“A powerfully humane novel about inheritance, trauma and the inheritance of trauma.”
"Will and Testament is a compulsively readable novel, one that turns questions of shame into weapons against silence.”
“Nano Nagle delivers this story with confidence, helping to build tension and atmosphere…Nagle’s strong characterization ensures that the story is easy to follow despite its sometimes upsetting subject matter. Her skilled voicing of Norwegian names is the only clue that this audiobook is a translation into English.”
“Captivating, psychologically intense…Hjorth’s thoughtful, drily funny, and often devastating novel will leave a deep and lasting impression.”
“The strength of the novel lies in Bergljot’s convincing and continuing vulnerability, in her mixed feelings and her flaws…A cleareyed and convincing story of a family’s doomed attempt to reconcile and the limits of forgiveness.”