Valentines: Stories [Hardcover]

Olaf Olafsson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 30, 2007

From the acclaimed Icelandic author of Absolution, The Journey Home (now about to start filming under Liv Ullmann’s direction) and Walking into the Night: a haunting collection of thematically linked stories that encompasses the twelve months of a year, capturing the most candid moments between lovers, husbands and wives, parents and children–when truths and true feelings surge to the surface and everything changes.

Olaf Olafsson’s fans will recognize the perfect restraint and precision–and quick wit–with which he characteristically explores these dark epiphanies, when the heart is suddenly laid bare, whether by love or betrayal, disenchantment or regret, or the shock of loss. While their settings range from the East Coast to the West Coast, from Paris to Slovenia and Iceland, these contemporary stories probe the complexity of modern relationships over time. A wife realizes her closest confidante is much more than that. A father tries to make his new lover into the image of his late wife. A lusty photographer confronts his own mortality. A couple’s long-anticipated anniversary vacation opens onto the past. A husband, a wife, a child, a boating accident: no harm done . . . and yet?

Each of the twelve stories reveals another element in the agonizing nature of passion, diminished and yet sustained over time. This is a powerful work of fiction from one of our most gifted and subtle international writers at work today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This book is a small gem. The writing is crisp, clear and uncluttered--and so true and realistic one gets the feeling the characters are discovering their true selves even as they speak, so much so that sometimes the final words or actions of the final paragraphs of the stories seem to surprise the characters as much as they do us. I really liked that many of the stories have a nice little tweaks of O. Henry punches at the end. I think the first story, "January," with its melancholy mixture of regret and self-delusion, compares favorably to anything Ishiguro has done, and I'm still thinking of the cuckolded husband losing control (or maybe finally taking control) of his life and going ballistic at his wife's yard sale. The book is filled with flawed characters trying to do their best; that they rarely succeed and yet are still so sympathetic speaks volumes about the skill of the author. To put it another way: now that I'm done with this collection I'm planning to read all his other books. --Terry Goodman

From Publishers Weekly

Icelandic émigré novelist Olafsson (Absolution) offers a grim look at chilled middle-aged marriage in 12 stories titled after the months of the year. Olafsson delivers the basic facts of a situation or marriage in a monotonous, uninflected prose that is, in its portentous flatness, utterly compelling. His characters, most hailing from Icelandic stock and thoroughly assimilated into American life, suffer from severely impacted emotion that threatens, when gently triggered, to spew volcanically. Tomas, the bland, typically diffident protagonist of "January," contacts his former live-in girlfriend after 10 years during an overnight flight delay in New York, finding to his shock and dismay that Maureen is sick and probably dying. While he might make amends for his previous emotional cowardice, his instinct is to flee. In "June," a controlling father's disappointment at his daughter's marriage to a gutless American doctor (rather than a firm, outdoorsy Icelander) leads to a weirdly Freudian set of maneuverings by both father and son-in-law. And in several pieces, an old, undisclosed affair resurfaces after decades to haunt a marriage, leading one wife ("August") to mutter upon her husband's revelations of early unfaithfulness: "It was all built on sand." Olafsson's Nordic realism à la Bergman holds a ghastly fascination. (Feb.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1ST edition (January 30, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375424687
• ISBN-13: 978-0375424687
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,897,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nordic realism, minimalistically presented, April 18, 2007

By 

Loren Jensen (Auburn, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Valentines: Stories (Hardcover)

I did not buy this book for myself; it was a gift from my wife, who knows that I treasure short story collections and who was captivated by the author's name (I had a great-grandfather named Jens Jensen, so Olaf Olafsson held the appeal of a distant cousin).

These stories are as advertised: 12 tales of emotional conflict between men and women caught in deceptions of the heart; the writing is pristine, yet almost infuriatingly brief; and it is difficult to be dispassionate about the characters - their lives are familiar, their tragedies plausible, their failures to be truthful with loved ones altogether human.

There is no happy light at the end of the tunnel in these stories. The characters are unable to extricate themselves from lies and dishonesties - proper and timely apologies seem never to cross their minds - and the views into thier lives usually conclude with anger and sadness.

The writing is superb, and I recommend this book for anyone who does not require tidy and happy endings in their fiction.

5.0 out of 5 stars nothing stands still..., May 29, 2007

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Valentines: Stories (Hardcover)

We all have crisis points in our lives --- moments of time where we are never the same, where a simple word from a friend or an enemy can stay with us forever, where a whispered admission of guilt or a secret made public can alter the course of a relationship indefinitely. Olaf Olafsson's book of short stories catches 12 of these relationships right at their own individual points of crisis. Men and women alike will be carried along by these tales, as the universality of human nature takes the place of rigid stereotypes or gender-based points of view.

Each story in VALENTINES takes place during a different month of the year. In January a bachelor tries to reconnect with an old girlfriend. In March a barren wife discovers that her husband can't let go of his desire for children. In July a husband's sudden illness keeps him from leaving his wife and from rekindling his occupational passion. Each story presents both sides of the argument at hand, as Olafsson exposes the complexity of true understanding and commitment's fragile threads. Here there are no right or wrong answers, no "morals to the story." There is only the reality that nothing stands still.

Some of the stories presented in VALENTINES are set in Iceland, while others take place at various locations within the United States. Many of the stories are a combination of the two, with one or more of the main characters migrating from one location to the other. Olafsson himself is a migratory Icelander, having lived in the United States for a number of years, but owning a house in Reykjavik in order to visit his homeland often.

Olafsson acknowledges in these stories the difficulty of maintaining one's cultural heritage while forming roots in another country. In September an Icelandic mother counsels her emigrating daughter not to marry an American, and in June a father tests his American son-in-law to the limit during the new groom's first visit to Iceland. In May a husband settles down with an American woman, happily trading his past country for his present and future happiness, only to have his wife leave him for another woman.

VALENTINES takes off with a bang, and each page leads to the other effortlessly. Olafsson is a master of dialogue and thus makes the most difficult aspect of story-writing seem easy and natural. His characters come alive the most at this time, as short, clipped sentences speak volumes in revealing the character of the speaker. When such dialogue is infrequent, as sometimes happens here, the story sounds less like a beautifully flawless tale and more like a psychological evaluation. Therefore, the real gems in this book are those that are heavy on communication and light on narration. Fortunately for the reader, Olafsson provides many such gems, and the perfection of one more than makes up for the small letdown of another.

While each page leads fluidly to the next, the reader will most likely need a bit of a break in between each story. The subject matter is so heavy that it's not easy to jump from one point of crisis to the next without being able to absorb each one separately. But after each absorption, the reader will be drawn back to VALENTINES, ready to voyeuristically enter the next intimate relationship and anxious to see how the next couple will deal with life's complexities.

--- Reviewed by Shannon Luders-Manuel