A Loving Thing

A major story of self-discovery

Three months ago, I was sure I couldn’t get pregnant. Then I was sure the abortion had worked and I was alone in my body again. On both counts, I was wrong.

Lio has just turned 30 and is pregnant. Her boyfriend Max is the only person who has always stood by her no matter what, despite her quirks. And yet she knows she doesn’t want to tell him about the pregnancy. The self-hatred her mother instilled in her is too strong, the doubts about whether she could ever be a (good) mother too great. With every week of pregnancy, as the cluster of cells in Lio’s belly grows, so too does her sense that she is choking on her own past, even though she’s spent the last ten years running from it and feels she should have moved on by now. When she finally stops lying to herself, Lio realises for the first time in her life what she really wants: not a baby, and not a relationship either, but to learn to live alone first. Because some things don’t have to heal. Not yet, anyway.

A young, honest and lucid novel about the difficulties of love and traumatic experiences

Razor-sharp, trenchant and intensely alive to the problems of modern life

English sample translation available

Rights sold to: Denmark