Favel Parrett's new novel One for Sorrow is a quiet, affecting work that builds to a devastating climax, exploring betrayal and desire against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Trondheim during the second world war. The story is told through the alternating narrations of Einar, a boy on the cusp of adolescence, and Johan Kristiansen, his new teacher.
Einar, growing up in the working-class district of Lademoen, is drawn to Johan as a surrogate father and a model for a life beyond provincial poverty. After their first class together, Einar reflects: “I had this feeling in me that maybe things might go well for the first time in a long time.” Johan is tall, virile, cosmopolitan, and eager to talk, unlike the laconic residents of the city by the fjord.
A Childhood Shadowed by Loss
Einar's narration looks back to his childhood, sketching the streets of Lademoen from the perspective of an adult still unable to understand what happened then. His family is marked by silence and grief: his little sister died suddenly, and “no one talked about her, my sister, for the rest of my childhood. No one spoke her name. It was as if she had never been there at all.” His father is “just a presence in the room that you could feel.”
Under occupation, food is rationed and speech is restricted, heightening the emotional repression in Einar's family and within the town. Einar finds solace in the numinous, asking his teacher early on: “What does enchanted mean?” His imagination turns the snow-covered courtyard into a “magical playground,” helping him endure the loneliness of childhood.
Forbidden Love and Its Consequences
Johan's attention is also caught by Einar's mother, Marianne. The two fall in love and begin an affair of great erotic intensity. Johan tells Einar: “I'm on fire whenever I think of her.” Marianne, who confesses “sometimes I feel like I am going to start screaming,” finds in Johan an outlet for emotions long suppressed. After their clandestine meetings, Einar sees his mother dance and sing, her face flushed with unexpected joy.
The novel treads similar paths to Ian McEwan's Atonement (2001) and LP Hartley's The Go-Between (1953), where young protagonists witness forbidden intimacies and respond as children, setting in train terrible consequences for the lovers. The guilt and grief shape the adulthood of the child witness.
A Carefully Crafted Narrative
One for Sorrow evokes themes familiar to readers of Parrett's fiction, including Past the Shallows (2011) and There Was Still Love (2019): emotional distance within the family, metaphorised landscapes, the not-fully-formed perspective of an adolescent protagonist, and varieties of love and attachment. Parrett's careful and spare style prevents the plot from melting into sentimental mush, and the novel is defined by silences and absences—spaces demarcated by grief and guilt, and also those enchanted by love and eroticism.
One for Sorrow by Favel Parrett is out now through Hachette.
