The Murder of Halland, by Pia Juul

06/08/2012

The Murder of Halland, by Pia Juul

The Murder of Halland is prefacedby a large-type annoucement by Meike Ziervogel of Peirene Press. It says:

If you like crime you won't be disappointed. A murder, a gun, an inspector, suspense. But the story strays far beyond the whodunit norm. Pia Jull charts the phases of bereavement in beautifully stark language.

PS. Don't skip the quotes.

Well. Hmm. I am still not sure this is a good idea. It is certainly true, at least up to a point. Writer Bess is woken by a loud sound she doesn't immediately recognise. A police person knocks on the door and says "In the name of the law... I am arresting you for the murder of your husband..."

Her partner, Halland, is dead, and a witness, Bjorn, believes he heard him say, "My wife has shot me."

Bess is in a state of shock and denial. She tries to process what is happening, tries to understand what has gone before. Their relationship was not easy. At one point, Bess comments, "Poor Halland. I think he would have liked to have known me."

It split her family, estranging her from her daughter, Abby, and the tensions no doubt fuelled her drink problem.

Juul's language, as translated by Martin Aitken is sparse and direct, but the story telling is oblique. We follow the murder investigation through Bess's eyes, which is to say we hardly follow it at all. At one point, the policeman Funder asks: "Don't you want an update on our progress?" to which Bess replies, "Must I?"

She is increasingly closed off from the rest of the world, seemingly detached but impatient with those around her who will not let her grieve in her own way.

"It's raining outside," Pernille announced when she finally came tripping into the kitchen, looking for breakfast.

"Where else would it be raining?" I slammed the bread basket down on the table.

Clearly there is a possibility that Bess is deceiving herself, and it was her who killed Halland. Others, too, we discover may have had their reasons...

To that extent Halland is a whodunit, and by taking the investigation almost completely out of the story, Juul is telling of a crime in different way, and, I suppose, she is 'turning criction on its head' as the jacket announces.

But perhaps the sales pitch is self-defeating. All novels that include a crime are not crime fiction, and The Murder of Halland works much better as a portrait of a woman going through trauma.

(It is also Scandi-crime, I suppose, in that Juul is Danish, and Bess lives somewhere outside Copenhagen, but sense of place is sparse... - Juul is not the next Stieg Larsson).

Sometimes I thought Halland was very good indeed; sometimes I felt there was nothing really there... So I staretd to reread almost straightaway, which is a good sign. Isn't it?

PS. The quotes that begin each chapter are amusing, if every bit as oblique as the narrative.

I particularly liked: