Imagine a girl running as fast as her thin legs can carry her. Over the fields, down the road, while the hair flutters. Vips, she snatches the letters from the mailbox and flies like a wind up again in the yard, where an adult man stands with a stopwatch and nods contentedly: Two seconds better than yesterday, “and nineteen seconds faster than when you arrived.” The man with the stopwatch is not the father at all, and the girl who runs is only visiting. Or, she’s put away for the summer, placed here with this man and his wife, a couple without their own children. At home, the mother is expecting another child, the herd is already large, and it costs money to feed everyone. Sets traces The original title of the book is “Foster”. This is understandable, because is it not a kind of foster home she has been given? Merete Alfsen’s Norwegian title, «Three lights», is also apt. There are many possibilities for interpretation in it. Is there anything this novel is full of, then there are hints of something that has happened or may not have happened – and that we as readers can take to heart or read past. “Three Lights” is a short novel, almost a long short story. Alfsen, who is Scott Smith’s regular translator, is also good in this small, dense format. The picture of the girl running is just one of the many pictures that have stuck with me; another is the face of a dead and drowned boy. Several faces take shape, some drawn and pale, some rounder, but most serious. The girl is also serious, but still full of childlike excitement the day her father drives her to these distant relatives. He leaves as fast as he can – and forgets to let her take his luggage with him. The Art of Hint This is my first encounter with Claire Keegan. She’s about my age, born in the 1960s. Back home in Ireland, she has received several awards for her books, preferably collections of short stories, and she is praised by almost unmatched author colleagues such as Hilary Mantel and Douglas Stuart. Claire Keegan has perfected herself in the art of suggestion. Does the girl have homesickness? Does she see time away from home as an adventure? Is it a coincidence that she registers the mourning arrows at the entrance to the farm? It is the girl herself who tells. We do not get to know more than what she knows, but we understand – when the woman on the farm emphasizes that here in the house we have no secrets for each other – that there are probably some secrets here anyway. The girl learns it, during the summer. That’s not all there is to it. And not everything needs to be told to everyone. Adults who care With few, precise sentences, Keegan characterizes a landscape of fields, cows and horses. She reveals a society where neighbors help each other when someone is in need, but where someone also trips out of curiosity about what is really going on behind the walls of others. The question arises: What is happiness? Is it possible to see bright spots even when the biggest accident has hit? Care is a concept the girl is experiencing in practice this summer. She may not have thought about it before, that she as one of many siblings can not expect an adult to care about how fast she runs. Nor has anyone ever sat down with her to teach her the difficult words of a newly purchased book. Triggers the brain Keegan often goes straight into a scene before the explanation or elaboration of the situation comes little by little. This creates an immediate sense of participation. We who read are in the events, there is no filter between the girl and us. The little story also contains the seeds of dozens of others. From a side note that is now probably one of the striking deaths, we understand that the year is 1981, the year ten Northern Irish prisoners starved to death in protest of Margaret Thatcher’s policies. What happened then? And how did the girl’s father play away the red Shorthorn heifer? Who drinks more than they should in the wake, and why? The book has no unambiguous ending. From here it can go in many directions. But the image of the girl who runs, remains, and I as a reader want nothing more than to start all over again, taste the sentences, feel the fresh Irish wind against my face, invent further on the untold stories and think that this, it is really literature ! news reviewer Photo: Aschehoug publishing house Title: «Three lights» Author: Claire Keegan Original title: «Foster» Translator: Merete Alfsen Publishing house: Aschehoug Date: June 2022 Number of pages: 79
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“Three Lights” by Claire Keegan – Reviews and Recommendations
