Something That Helps

Overview

From acclaimed Norwegian writer Mona Høvring comes an intimate and stirring coming-of-age and sexual awakening story of a young woman following her own path to destruction and reconciliation.

Laura is in her late teens, living in a small coastal town in Western Norway, the summer before her final year of school. Haunted by the death of her mother by suicide, she has a strained relationship with her fisherman father and feels the absence of her brother and closest friend, both of whom have moved away. Equal parts lonely and bewildered, a lack of guidance has made her independent, determined, and vulnerable.

When Laura meets the older, more experienced Vivian Koller, the encounter sets in motion a series of events that will come to define her and her future. Crucial influences converge, pushing the simultaneously childish and adult protagonist into dark places—and eventually toward the start of a new life.

Author Biography

MONA HØVRING is an award-winning Norwegian author of many acclaimed books, including eight poetry collections and six novels. She has been nominated for and won various prestigious awards, including the Unified Language Prize, the Nordic Council Literature Prize, and the Dobloug Prize. Because Venus Crossed an Alpine Violet on the Day that I Was Born, translated into English by Kari Dickson in 2021, won the Norwegian Critics’ Prize for Literature, was a finalist for the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize, and was included on numerous best of the year book lists. Høvring lives just outside of Oslo, Norway.

KARI DICKSON is a literary translator. She translates from Norwegian, and her work includes literary fiction, children's books, theatre, and nonfiction. Some recent literary translations include Rune Christiansen's Fanny and the Mystery in the Grieving Forest and The Loneliness in Lydia Erneman's Life, and Mona Høvring's Because Venus Crossed an Alpine Violet on the Day that I Was Born, co-translated by Rachel Rankin. She is also an occasional tutor in Norwegian language, literature, and translation at the University of Edinburgh, and has worked with the British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) and the National Centre for Writing. Dickson lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.