Translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls
Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023, 46 pages. Original version published in 2023.

A man drives without a destination, out of boredom. He continues driving until the road takes him into a forest, and his car gets stuck on the forest road.

He gets out of the car and instead of heading out of the forest to find help, he goes deeper into it. It is starting to get dark and to snow, and he becomes disoriented. He can barely see—there is a moon but it is hidden behind clouds.

What he does see makes no sense, at least not in the real world. He sees a luminous presence, human-shaped but not human, and it seems to be coming towards him. He is able to communicate with the presence. When he asks if there is anyone there, he hears a voice: “I’m here, I’m here always, I’m always here—which startles me, because this time there was no doubt I’d heard a voice, and it was a thin and weak voice, and yet it’s like the voice had a kind of deep warm fullness in it”.

This is a strange story, blurring the line between the real and the imagined (or supernatural). The book is narrated by the man in a stream of consciousness monologue, and you are in his head, listening to his thoughts, feeling his fear and bewilderment. He sees his parents, or thinks he does. His mother is telling him to move, to go home, while his father is mostly silent. Through the conversation with them, you get a sense of their relationship.

It is never clear what is really going on. What is the luminous shape he sees? Are his parents really in the forest with him? Or is he hallucinating or maybe even dying? Why is he in the forest in the first place?

The novella is written in one continuous narrative, with no paragraph breaks. Damion Searles, in his translation, conveys the eerie otherworldliness of the writing.

This is not a book for people who like clear plots and unambiguous endings. Jon Fosse leaves a lot unexplained. It is up to the reader to create their own version of the story—it all depends on how it is read: as a straightforward narrative, as a spiritual journey, a supernatural tale, a man’s hallucinations, or as a combination of these.

Or you could just go with it and see where it takes you.