The Ferryman and His Wife

A Novel

De: Frode Grytten, Alison McCullough - translator

In the spirit of Amor Towles and George Saunders, the renowned, bestselling Norwegian author Frode Grytten takes readers on a quietly epic journey: ferry driver Nils Vik’s last route along the fjord, on what he knows will be his last day alive.

Nils Vik wakes up on November the 18th and knows it will be the day he dies. He follows his morning routine as voices from his past echo in his mind, and looks around the empty house one last time, before stepping onto his beloved boat.

His dog, dead these many years, leaps aboard with him, and then the other dead begin to emerge – from the woods along the fjord, from each of the ferry stops along the route, from his logbook full of memories and quotations and jotted-down notes about the weather conditions. The people from the past accompany him now, prodding him, showing him what he might have missed before, as he waits for his Marta, his late, remarkable wife, to finally join him on the boat again.

Winner of the prestigious Brage Prize, and considered to be Grytten’s long-awaited masterpiece, The Ferryman and His Wife is the story of a quiet, yet utterly profound, life told in reverse. Timeless and absorbing, this is a novel about what we take with us – those moments that might seem insignificant as they happen but prove to be the most meaningful, in the end.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Few novels understand so well that a life can never be summed up and will always overflow its telling. Everything is at stake in these166 pages, saturated with tenderness, achingly real and profoundly moving."—Anne Michaels, author of Held and Fugitive Pieces

“The Ferryman and His Wife is one of those rare novels that takes us beyond reading about a character’s life to experiencing that life. Grytten is an immensely talented writer, and as Nils, the book’s central character, makes his final voyage we also relive with him his losses and heartbreaks, his blessings and joys, all of which gather to a profound affirmation of life. Mystical, yet true to the depths of the human heart, Grytten’s novel is a triumph.”
—Ron Rash, author of Serena and The Caretaker

“Only a few pages into The Ferryman and His Wife, I was heartbroken that this story would ever end. With his spare, beautiful prose, Frode Grytten made me homesick for a landscape I’ve never seen—the remote and wintry fjords of Norway. Gorgeous and devastating in its simplicity, The Ferryman and His Wife takes us to the heart of things—life and how we live it but also how we leave it.”—Eileen Garvin, bestselling author of Crow Talk and The Music of Bees.

“Tenderly powerful and urgently contemplative, The Ferryman and His Wife is a profound exploration of what gives a life meaning. With remarkable creativity and piercing honesty, Frode Grytten guides us on a vivid and intimate journey through both the ferryman’s fjord, and his memories. The story is breathtaking,unforgettable, and threaded with humble insights about the human experience. Upon turning the final page, I held the book to my chest with a shiver of gratitude.”
—Sarah Damoff, USA Today-bestselling author of The Bright Years

"The character of Nils conveys patience, wisdom, kindness, and love in a narrative that inevitably brings to mind the Greek myth of Charon, ferrying dead souls across the Rivers of Acheron and Styx to Hades… Against the harsh and beautiful Norwegian landscape backdrop, [Grytten] reveals the depth and complexity of ordinary lives in this outstanding novel, without even the briefest descent into sentimentality."—Library Journal, *STARRED REVIEW*

“A heartfelt reckoning of a human life, with all that it entails. With a grounded, everyday touch, Grytten patiently weaves the slow tapestry of how a human being comes into being-through their relationships, not only with other people, but with the place itself and the lives that inhabit it.” —Lisa Ridzén, internationally bestselling author of When the Cranes Fly South