Before You Sleep, by Linn Ullmann
By Peter on Jan 19, 2008 in Fiction Books, Norwegian Writer
While Before You Sleep was not viewed as controversial in Norway, American reviewers have regarded it as a “detailed and sexually frank novel.” Such labels aside, Before You Sleep is a great and interesting story of a Norwegian family, Blom, with strong and also somewhat eccentric women, 
that spans several generations. The story moves from Oslo to Brooklyn, both places well known to the author.
The Norwegian author Linn Karin Beate Ullmann (born 1966) is the daughter of Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann and Swedish movie director Ingmar Bergman. She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied English literature and also began work on her Ph.D. She returned to Norway in 1990 to pursue a career in journalism.
Her first novel, Before You Sleep, was published in 1998. Her second 
novel, Stella Descending (2001), received glowing reviews. Her third novel, Grace, was published in 2002 and won the prominent literary award “The reader’s prize” in Norway and was named one of the ten best novels of that year by the prestigious newspaper “Weekendavisen” in Denmark.
In 2007, Grace was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in the UK. All of Linn Ullmann’s books are reviewed at Leserglede.
Ullmann’s fourth novel, A Blessed Child, was published in the fall of 2005, and was shortlisted for the Brage Price, one of Norway’s most prestigious literary awards.
The story in Before You Sleep is complicated. It is told, over time, from the mouth of one of the key characters in the book, Karin. It is about relations inside and out of the family, about motherhood, marriage, emotions, love, and even infidelity.
Before You Sleep is an exceptional debut book. It is very well worth reading. Linn Ullman tells her story in a way that makes the characters come alive, and make you sympathize with their strange actions and understand their emotions.
Praise for Before You Sleep:
“Of this autumns literary output, novelist Linn Ullmann is the wickedest and wittiest, and because she writes with a silent sincerity and merges all this with wit, intelligence and a generous picture of human beings, the novel is a real pleasure to read.” CECILIE WINGER, FÆDRELANDSVENNEN (Norway)
“Before You Sleep is infernally well written. The debutante, Linn Ullmann, has, from page one, found her own form and language, consistent in style until the end.”
GT (Sweden)
– Peter
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