Stella Descending

Linn Ullmann explores the narrow line that lies between life and death, order and chaos, surface and sincerity

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On a warm summer night in Oslo, Martin draws Stella into one of the risky games that have defined their ten years together: a balancing act on the edge of their rooftop, seven stories up. Amid the shouts of horrified onlookers, Stella stumbles, falling for a moment into Martin's arms before plummeting to her death. (Did he try to save her?)So begins Linn Ullmann's transfixing tale of a jealous wife, compliant mistress, treasured friend, angelic nurse, unloved daughter, devoted mother - and finally, a woman possessed of a secret now forever lost to the living. As Stella's life unfolds in the recollections of those she has left beind, we observe the fabric of many unravelling lives. And as Stella herself bears witness from a place beyond death, we come to understand how precarious her life was behind its facade of loveliness and order.

With a quiet power, STELLA DESCENDING gives us the backlit dailiness - and the dark metaphysical underworld - of life in a fabled metropolis. And in brilliantly evoking the loneliness that haunts all our intimacies, it becomes a fable of life everywhere.