Helle Helle's 'They' Review: A Minimalist Masterpiece of Mother-Daughter Bonding
Danish author Helle Helle's acclaimed novel They, now available in the United Kingdom through a meticulously crafted translation by Martin Aitken, presents a profound exploration of the delicate and evolving connection between a teenage daughter and her ailing mother. Written in a minimalist style that avoids austerity, this narrative demonstrates how profound truths can emerge from the quietest of moments. It is a story where dialogue is sparse, yet by the conclusion, every essential emotion and thought has been conveyed with remarkable clarity.
A Life of Quiet Routine in a Danish Backwater
The unnamed mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter reside above a hairdresser's shop in a remote area on the island of Lolland, Denmark, where daily life unfolds with a gentle, uneventful rhythm. Their days are filled with simple activities: walking across fields awakening in spring, purchasing groceries, and attending an evening class together. Details of their past remain elusive and fragmented, with only brief mentions of house moves and no information about the daughter's father, whose absence looms as a subtle, unspoken presence. For the most part, their relationship is characterized by a seamless, symbiotic closeness, as they spend hours sitting by the window, on the settee, or reading the free local weekly, often sipping their drinks in synchronous harmony.
Flashpoints and Teenage Anxieties Amidst Devastation
Occasionally, tensions surface, such as when the mother adjusts her daughter's collar before school, prompting the maturing girl to remark, "Only you still do that." Throughout much of the novel, the daughter is absorbed in typical teenage concerns, focusing on her best friend Tove Dunk, parties where vodka is drunk from wooden beakers, and anxieties about appearance and social standing. However, this ordinary existence is shattered by devastating news: the mother's throat pain and lethargy are symptoms of a terminal illness, with doctors estimating only six months to a year left. Helle avoids sentimental melodrama, instead portraying life continuing with eerie normalcy, though the daughter must now spend long periods visiting her mother in hospital.
Tender Moments and Role Reversals in the Face of Mortality
The hospital scenes provide some of the book's most quietly moving moments, including a tender instance where the daughter breaks a toenail painfully, and the mother offers a morphine tablet, or when they sing If You're Happy and You Know It together, laughing until tears flow. Upon the mother's return home, their roles reverse, forcing the daughter to take on domestic tasks like vacuuming and cleaning the toilet with clumsy inexperience. Her emotions occasionally break through her rigid self-control, such as when she cries into a hood in a shop or feels irrational hatred towards a carpet. Alongside this, Helle masterfully captures the listlessness and anticipation of teenage life, with shifting friendships and the oppressive weight of an uncertain future, all heightened by the mother's limited time.
An Unflinching Portrait of Relationship Dynamics
While the accumulation of everyday details can feel overwhelming, the novel remains unflinching in its observation of the tiny exchanges that define relationships, many of which are easily overlooked. These vignettes collectively build a forceful picture of a mother and daughter grappling with the impermanence of existence and the meaning of caregiving. The looming sense of doom creates an unresolved tension that compels them to live fully in the present, exemplified in scenes where they sit together at each end of the settee with a biscuit bowl, laughing as darkness falls and garlands rustle outside. Precise, controlled, and unforgettable, They is a novel that implores readers to slow down and pay attention to the subtle beauties of life.
They by Helle Helle, translated by Martin Aitken, is published by Akoya (£12.99).
