Hailed as Audur Jonsdottir’s best-written novel so far, Quake is a shocking and revelatory exploration of the blurred lines between fact and fiction, reality and imagination, and where mother ends and child begins.
A haunting novel about Saga, a woman who comes to on the pavement alongside a busy street to find that her three-year-old son is gone. She’s just had a grand mal seizure—the first in years—and cannot remember what she’s doing or where she’s going. As her memory begins to return, big chunks remain mysterious. Why is her husband no longer living with her? Whose funeral flowers are on her table? Why has her mother gone missing? Desperate to piece together the fragments of her life, her declining health and frayed relationships drag her backwards in time into long-suppressed family secrets.
World Literature Today’s 75 Notable Translations of 2022
The Icelandic Bookseller´s Prize 2015
Nomination for The Icelandic Literary Prize 2015
Nomination for The DV Cultural Prize for Literature 2015
RUV Writers Fund Prize
“… powerful story of memory, identity, and the legacy of violence…”
Publishers Weekly
“Quake is an unflinching exploration of the human instinct to forget and deny trauma, as well as the power of mindful forgiveness; in this way, it is a thrillingly contemporary perspective on the choices we make, conscious and unconscious, that give our futures their shape.”
Elizabeth Rae – University of Oklahoma, World Literature Today
“Quake is to be applauded for its ambitious approach to exploring our understanding of ourselves as if we were starting with a blank canvas… The journey of discovery that we share with the central protagonist, Saga, who, after having her memory wiped, is painting her canvas, is deeply involving, emotionally draining, but also exciting… This is an intimate and unforgettable read.”
European Literature Network
“For all the philosophical quandaries that Quake raises, the book never feels contrived or solipsistic. In Matich’s English translation, Saga’s shifting understanding of herself is rendered in a language that is straightforward yet poetic, for Jónsdóttir understands that human life is inherently imbued with poetry.”
Asymptote
“Readers should not enter Quake expecting a thriller or the story of a kidnapping; the novel has a different, more-interesting project at its heart, a metafictional experiment that might have been purely cerebral, but is used to heart-wrenching results.”
Jessie Hennen, EuropeNow Journal
“The novel of the year.”
Arni Matthiasson, Morgunbladid
****½ (four and a half stars out of five)
“Here is a whole gallery of interesting characters that spring into life from the page … Jonsdottir skilfully juggles concepts of self-image and reality, of the surface in peoples’ relationships and what lies hidden beneath it. Quake is a poignant and riveting novel, without doubt one of the best books of the year. Jonsdottir has for many years demonstrated her supreme narrative skills, but here her grasp of style is more powerful than ever before; there’s an effortlessly beautiful ebb and flow between thought and reality, past and present, with interesting and profound ideas about what it means to be a human being living in society with others. The reader cannot help being swept away by it.”
Einar Falur Ingolfsson, Morgunbladid
* * * * (four stars out of five)
“With each new book Jonsdottir’s style gets better and better, and Quake is probably her best-written novel so far. The text is literally lip-smackingly good, so that one wants to read some chapters over and over, out loud as well as to oneself. The characters are three-dimensional, human and frail, they are well-formed and powerful, characters we feel we know from so-called reality, but then we begin to doubt whether we do truly know any person – including even ourselves.”
Fridrika Benonysdottir, Frettatiminn
“Outstanding work.”
Gauti Kristmannsson, Vidsja
“What a storyline! … in no time I was immersed in this, one of Jonsdottir‘s best books that, it goes without saying, rides the crest of the 2015 wave of publications.”
Thorgeir Tryggvason, Kjarninn
“Put simply, Jonsdottir‘s novel deserves every bit of the praise that has been heaped upon it … The characterisation is sophisticated … succeeds in dealing with a number of profound, complex and fascinating aspects of human existence – physical as well as emotional – none of which is weakened by the expansive treatment of the material.”
Asa Kristin Benediktsdottir, Hugras
“Quake is a complex family drama as well as a mystery novel that thoroughly develops the theme of what it’s like to be unable to trust your own mind and body … A fusion of literary and plot-driven genres that is a thoroughly entertaining read and will appeal to a diverse readership.”
Mar Masson Maack, Bokmenntir.is
“Existential seismic activity
What are we if not a composite copy of the people in our lives? What methods do we use to reconcile the expectations we place on them – and thus on ourselves? These threads are at the centre of Audur Jonsdottir’s latest book, Quake, which tackles the fundamental questions of subjectivity and the roles it fulfils in society with others. The name of the central character, Saga (which is also the Icelandic word for history), is thus symbolic for how the writer works with and manipulates the historical and shared human conflict that is close to us.
… Saga discovers, by diving into her memory, that her relationships with loved ones depend not only on memories but also on the suppression of them. Just as earthquakes are a reminder that beneath the organised surface lurk bubbling fires and substances waiting for an opportunity to explode from the bedrock, the writer uses an epileptic person to present the anarchy that characterises our existence. Saga’s vulnerability towards her own body becomes a discussion point about how little control man has over his life and what methods he uses to maintain the delusion that he is in charge. …
Strong characterisation
The style is clear and unaffected, and the presentation of epilepsy and its consequences is a clever way for the writer to work with a more lyrical and fractured text … In Quake Jonsdottir shows yet again that she is extremely skilled at creating complicated characters – to rub them down until what’s left is a raw, defenceless and yet so very pitiable human being.”
Solveig Asta Sigurdardottir, DV
“A very clever approach … Jonsdottir is a tremendously skilful narrator and an incredibly accomplished writer, and she guides you so easily through this … She is so good at describing ordinary people – making ordinary people engaging. A very good book.”
Egill Helgason, Kiljan, National TV
