April Witch: A Novel

April Witch: A Novel
by Majgull Axelsson

April Witch: A Novel
List Price: $12.95
Our Price: $4.48
You Save: $8.47 (65%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Majgull Axelsson
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-11
ISBN: 0812966880
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks

Summary of April Witch: A Novel

Desirée lies in a hospital bed thinking, dreaming. Born severely disabled, she cannot walk or talk, but she has other capabilities. Desirée is an April witch, clairvoyant and omniscient, traveling through time and space into the world denied her.

The woman who gave Desirée up at birth subsequently took in three foster daughters, who know nothing of the existence of their fourth ?sister.? Sensing that her own time is short, Desirée has decided that one of the others has lived the life she herself deserved. One day, each of the three women receives a mysterious letter that forces her to examine her past and her present?setting in motion a complex fugue of memory, regret, and confrontation that builds to a shattering climax.

April Witch created a furor upon its original publication in Sweden. Addressing themes of mother-daughter relationships, competition between women, and the failures of Sweden?s postwar welfare state, it is foremost a thrillingly written and fascinating story.
A smash hit in its native Sweden, Majgull Axelsson's second novel, April Witch, is both a fantastic and earthbound story of memory and regret. Desiree Johansson is born with a variety of birth defects into Sweden's welfare state of the 1950s. Abandoned by her mother, Ella, to a life of institutions, Desiree ends up at age 50 wracked with pain and seizures, unable to walk or speak, and grieving over the imminent death of a doctor she loves. But Desiree is also an April witch, strong-willed within her bodily prison, and able to track, psychically, the movements of three women who were raised by Ella as foster children. Full of envy and contempt, Desiree comes to see the world through the eyes of her stepsisters, each of whom has endured fortune's extremes. This far-fetched tale is nicely balanced by veteran journalist Axelsson's talent for suspense, grit, and criticism of mid-20th century conformity. Axelsson's prose is crisp and penetrating, a perfect voice for a novel whose characters' inner lives are monitored, revealed vicariously. --Tom Keogh

Scandinavian Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Scandinavian Books
Divine Madness and the Absurd Paradox: Ibsen's Peer Gynt and the Philosophy of Kierkegaard (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies) ImageDivine Madness and the Absurd Paradox: Ibsen's Peer Gynt and the Philosophy of Kierkegaard (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)
by Bruce G. Shapiro
Greenwood Press; Published: 1990-05-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $126.95
Per Olov Enquist: A Critical Study (Contributions to the Study of World Literature) ImagePer Olov Enquist: A Critical Study (Contributions to the Study of World Literature)
by Ross Shideler
Greenwood Press; Published: 1984-07-23; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $60.00
Price in other shops: $89.95
The Army of Truth: Selected Poems: In the historic fight to obtain equal rights for Jews in nineteenth-century Norway ImageThe Army of Truth: Selected Poems: In the historic fight to obtain equal rights for Jews in nineteenth-century Norway
by Henrik Wergeland
University of Wisconsin Press; Published: 2003-05-25; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.04
Price in other shops: $16.95
Knut Hamsun: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies) ImageKnut Hamsun: The Dark Side of Literary Brilliance (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies)
by Monika Zagar
University of Washington Press; Published: 2009-10-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.26
Price in other shops: $30.00
Crime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies) ImageCrime and Fantasy in Scandinavia: Fiction, Film, and Social Change (New Directions in Scandinavian Studies)
by Andrew Nestingen
Univ of Washington Pr; Published: 2008-07-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $64.97
Price in other shops: $65.00
Death in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction (Crime Files) ImageDeath in a Cold Climate: A Guide to Scandinavian Crime Fiction (Crime Files)
by Barry Forshaw
Palgrave Macmillan; Published: 2012-02-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.66
Price in other shops: $28.00
Letters from Africa, 1914-1931 ImageLetters from Africa, 1914-1931
by Isak Dinesen
University Of Chicago Press; Published: 1982-02-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $123.45
The Poetic Edda: Volume II: Mythological Poems ImageThe Poetic Edda: Volume II: Mythological Poems
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 1997-12-04; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $163.00
Price in other shops: $199.00
A Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics) ImageA Doll's House and Other Plays (Penguin Classics)
by Henrik Ibsen
Penguin Classics; Published: 1965-06-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.75
Price in other shops: $11.00
Light ImageLight
by Torgny Lindgren
Harpercollins; Published: 1993-06; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $29.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories