There's a spare yet unfiltered quality to Helle Helle's prose which, when you get the hang of it, is a brilliant reflection of the desultory young narrator. As she navigates Denmark's landscapes, train stations & department stores, a bird call or lost picnic basket make random appearances & are given the same weight as a funeral or break-up. Recommended to fans of Sheila Heti's How Should A Person Be?, Lydia Davis's The End of the Story, Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation.
Dorte is twenty and adrift, pretending to study literature at Copenhagen University. In reality she is riding the trains and clocking up random encounters in her new home by the railway tracks. She remembers her ex, Per - the first boyfriend she tells us about, and the first she leaves - as she enters a new world of transient relationships, random sexual experiences and awkward attempts to write.