The Summer of Ellen

Author(s): Agnete Friis, Sinead Quirke Kongerskov (translator)

Location(s): Jutland, Denmark

Genre(s): Fiction, In Translation, Mystery

Era(s): Contemporary and 1978

Agnete Friis returns with a lyrical, suspenseful new standalone set in rural Denmark that moves between the present and the summer of 1978, exploring obsession, toxic masculinity and the tricks we play on our own memory.

Jacob, a middle-aged architect living in Copenhagen, is in the throes of a bitter divorce and the resulting alcoholic binge when he receives an unexpected call from his great-uncle Anton, who is in his nineties and still lives with his brother Anders on their rural Jutland farm—a place Jacob hasn’t visited since the summer of 1978.

Anton asks Jacob to answer the question that has haunted them both for decades: What happened to Ellen?

To find out, Jacob must revisit the farm and confront what took place that summer—one defined by his teenage obsession with Ellen, a beautiful young hippie from the local commune who came to stay with Anton and Anders, and the unsolved disappearance of Jacob’s best friend’s sister. What he finds is that none of these events were what they seemed, though they have affected the course of his entire life.

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