#BlogTour ‘The Swell’ by Kat Gordon

About the book…

In places of darkness, women will rise . . .

Iceland, 1910. In the middle of a severe storm two sisters – Freyja and Gudrun – rescue a mysterious, charismatic man from a shipwreck near their remote farm.

Sixty-five years later, a young woman – Sigga – is spending time with her grandmother when they learn a body has been discovered on a mountainside near Reykjavik, perfectly preserved in ice.

Moving between the turn of the 20th century and the 1970s as a dark mystery is unravelled, The Swell is a spellbinding, beautifully atmospheric read, rich in Icelandic myth.

Due to be published on February 27th, my thanks to Tracy Fenton of Compulsive Readers and publishers Bonnier Books for my blogtour invite and gifted review copy of ‘The Swell’

It is no exaggeration to say that to read this book, is to experience it-looking outside at the early spring sunshine is hard to reconcile with the icy landscape of Iceland, both in the early part of the twentieth century, and , in alternating chapters, the mid 70’s.

Sisters Gudrun and Freya live with their widowed father in a village controlled by the patriarchal domination of the local Father, who travels house to house, welcomed in and fed with gossip before moving on to the next one. There are strict social protocols to follow, so when a Danish sailor named Tom washes up, and starts putting down roots in this household, rumours swirl about 2 unmarried women living with an unattached male.

There is a sense of expectation as well as love, from their father towards the girls, and although their mother was allowed to go fishing with him, they are strictly forbidden to do so and must keep the house, tend the animals and gather hay , working season by season to maintain their homestead.

So when Tom comes into the house, and then between the sisters, their paradigm shift from passive recipients of the male gaze becomes something quite fierce and revolutionary for this time frame.

Their village, culture and way of life is all live around the seasons and the sea, embedded in a setting of folklore and legend which is maintained as seriously as any religion, even to the extent of naming the families and children after these legendary figures. In this place, whilst women hold a value, it is an adjunct to the males in their life rather than being seen as people in their own right and this is not something which sits easily with either Gudrun or Freya.

They reminded me of the sisters, Gudrun and Ursula in D.H Lawrence’s ‘Women In Love’, one of my all time favourite novels, in that their are so ahead of their time as women aware of their potential .(I may be wrong about this so please don’t hesitate to pull me up on it!)

Alternating with chapters set in 1910, are the experiences of young Sigga, living in 1975, when the notion of feminist uprising is part and parcel of everyday life, including the mention of the Red Stocking Movement, or the Women’s Day Off-a strike where women abstain from any traditional work which is presumed to be part and parcel of their sexual orientation.

Sigga lives with her Amma, and is finding who she is within, and without the strictures of her relationship with her partner , and her siblings-both boys- and the societal expectation on her as an individual.

Her family always excuse the behaviour of her brothers, especially towards her, whilst expecting so much more from Sigga, almost indulging rather than taking seriously her ownership of her body, her fertility and her future.

Between these 2 timelines is a mystery, a reckoning which joins them both-in the 70’s a body is found frozen in ice, but whose?

What will the thawing of this person reveal in the context of these women’s lives?

Is Sigga’s Amma related to Gudrun and Freya? What legacy will be handed down through the decades to the woman of 1970’s Iceland, and how does it reflect on where we are, as women, today?

To me , 1975 doesn’t seem so long ago-it’s the year I was born-and it feels so modern yet when you read about a time just stepping into a reality that modern women maybe take for granted, it really gives you pause.

What makes you, the reader, feel that 1910 was so ,long ago and yet the 1970’s aren’t?

I was absorbed with Sigga and her fearlessness but so keenly aware that if it hadn’t been for earlier generations of women fighting for equality, would she have that privilege?

And what do we, the women of the twenty first century want to leave as our legacy?

As this mysterious figure is defrosted , time frames flow into each other and I was so so keen to want to race through the chapters to work out who was who, and what was what, that I really had to slow myself down to savour the cultural back drop of Iceland, the historical reverence towards trolls, giants and fortunes foretold in the past, handed to the next generation.

The title itself is perfect, to me, a swell suggest a movement, a pause between something coming before and something about to arrive, like the build up to, then crash of a wave.

These women are the swell, the breath that is to be expelled, the truth which is to be uttered and it is such an incredible, evocative and thoughtful read that it is difficult to define. Historical fiction , yes, but also a journey of discovery for these women, their communities and us, as grateful readers of this moving story.

About the author…

Kat Gordon was born in London. She attended Camden School for Girls, Somerville College, Oxford, and received a Masters in Creative Writing from Royal Holloway. In between, Kat has been a gymnastics coach, a theatre usher, a piano accompanist, a nanny, a researcher and worked at Time Out. She has spent a lot of time travelling, primarily in Africa.

Kat lives in London with her boyfriend and their terrifying cat, Maggie. Her first novel, ‘The Artificial Anatomy Of Parks’ was published by Legend Press on 1st July 2015.

Twitter @katgordon1984 @Tr4cyF3nt0n @bonnierbooks_uk