Navarro Skaranger, Maria: Emily Forever

In this novel about poverty, social inequality, and class contempt in Norway, nineteen-year-old supermarket worker Emily is single, pregnant, and struggling to make ends meet. Em’s nineteen years old and pregnant. Her boyfriend Pablo has gone out “to take care of something” and hasn’t returned. Her mother, who raised Emily alone, moves into the little apartment to help. Meanwhile, Em’s neighbour, who may or may not be a clergyman, wonders if it’s normal to be so infatuated with someone you’ve never spoken to. Em’s boss at the supermarket might have feelings for her too, if only she’d notice. Emily Forever is a poignant, achingly hard-hitting book about class and about digging deep to find what it takes to get by. At the same time, it’s a deeply original exploration of how a girl like Emily is seen from the outside, by those who think they know who she is and how her life is supposed to pan out. Empathetic and quizzical, and scathingly humorous, Emily Forever is a novel of unyielding solidarity and smoldering social dissent, by a new star of Scandinavian literature.