My Men

A spellbinding, darkly poetic literary novel that plunges us into the inner life of America's first female serial killerSeventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever - she can't quiet the screaming world inside her. Following the brutal end of an intense affair, she flees Norway for America to begin a new life as Bella. She tries to settle first with her sister and then with a husband, but the restless pulse of her desire and fear won't let her keep still. As Bella seeks refuge in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love ruptures into violence.In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland writes her way into the tumultuous inner life of Brynhild Størset, the Norwegian woman who would become Belle Gunness - one of America's most notorious female serial killers. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men dares to imagine one woman's capacity for ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.



Victoria Kielland is a Norwegian writer. My Men was published to rave reviews in Norway, earning her several prizes including the Swedish Academy's Dobloug Prize and the Norwegian Academy's Thorleif Dahl Prize, of which she was the youngest ever recipient. The novel is also being translated into 14 languages. Kielland's debut short story collection, I Lyngen (In the Heather), was shortlisted for the Tarjei Vesaas First Book Prize, and her first novel, Dammyr (Marsh Pond), was shortlisted for the Youth Critics' Prize.Damion Searls has translated more than fifty books of classic modern literature, including works by Rainer Maria Rilke, Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, Elfriede Jelinek and Jon Fosse. His own writing includes fiction, poetry, criticism, The Inkblots-a history of the Rorschach Test and biography of its creator, Hermann Rorschach-and The Philosophy of Translation, forthcoming.