By Monica Isakstuen
“My stories. Yours. Ours. They intertwine, has to be written down to be told apart. We are all historians in our own ways.” The british pianist Joyce Hatto died in 2006. During…
“My stories. Yours. Ours. They intertwine, has to be written down to be told apart. We are all historians in our own ways.”
The british pianist Joyce Hatto died in 2006. During her final years, she recorded more than a hundred CDs. Her obituary called her «The greatest pianist the world hasn’t heard of.» Later, all her recordings were revealed to be a fraud, the work of other pianists.
This we know, this happened. Then the fiction starts. “Replay” is an open and uredd fantasy based on the life and fall of Joyce Hatto. And a portrait of Ida, who herself feel like a liar when acting as daughter, girlfriend, mother. Did Joyce teach her this? Or do we all carry this game in us, the ability to claim tones that isn’t our own, but that might give us the things we want most of all?
“One of this year’s best novels … Not often does one read descriptions of friendship as original and beautiful as these.”
Mari Nymoen Nilsen, VG, 5 out of 6 stars
“Monica Isakstuen doesn’t provide simple answers. She writes with a sore intensity that appears honest to the core. Replay is a believable guide into the topography of lying.
Elisabeth Skifjeld, Telemarksavisa, 6 out of 6 stars
“Replay is an energetic novel about the emptiness behind desire, the silence after the limelight is gone, the longing to mean something to someone else.
Anne Cathrine Straume, NRK
“With her precise language and ability to create images, reflecting her experience as a poet, Isakstuen has constructed a novel which slowly, but steadily tightens it’s grip and catches the readers attention – and engages deeply.
Kjell Jørgen Holbye, Fredrikstad Blad, 5 out of 6 stars
“Monica Isakstuen has, with openness in composition and approach, written a novel that touch this reader deeply, and at the same time in a masterful way lifts Joyce Hatto’s story from the particular to the general.
Geir Vestad, Hamar Arbeiderblad
“[…] an enormous drive, soon transporting the reader to the core of the protagonists inner toxicness.”
Aksel Kielland, Klassekampen
