title: Siamese (Norwegian Literature)
author: Stig Saeterbakken
description: A tenderly contentious marriage of many decades forms the tragic-comic snarl in this lively novel. Edwin and Erna Mortens have grown so familiar and repugnant to each other that death would be a blessed release. The novel is told in alternate first-person chaptersfirst wife, then husbandand each voice is wonderfully energetic and emotionally charged. Edwin is a former director of a retirement home (his job was to oversee the process of death) whose gradual loss of sight robbed him of his job and his sense of self-worth; powerless to do anything without his wife's help (he calls her Sweetie and his prison warden), and deteriorating rapidly, Edwin rails against his imminent death and Erna's perceived duplicity. Erna, meanwhile, is losing her hearing, and though dutiful and long-suffering, she is also mischievous, offering Edwin's old room to their building's young super. Saeterbakken skillfully creates a delightful, solipsistic tension between the querulous old couple. Their kinship is a lovely, bitter riot. <i>(Jan.)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events,
  and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used
  fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual
  events is purely coincidental.
  
  
  Text copyright © 2015 Gard Sveen Translation copyright © 2017 Paul Norlen All
  rights reserved.
  
  
  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or
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  Previously published as Helvete åpent by Vigmostad & Bjørke in Norway in 2015.
  Translated from Norwegian by Paul Norlen. First published in English by
  AmazonCrossing in 2017.
  
  
  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle [www.apub.com](http://www.apub.com)
  
  
  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of
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