Blue Notes (Literature in Translation Series)
Description
How much grief is too much? How far should we go to avoid pain? From the author of the international bestselling novel Agatha comes a literary medical thriller about loss, empathy, science, Big Pharma, and societal norms.
A Danish university research group is finishing its study of a new medicine, Callocain: the world’s first pill for grief. But psychology professor Thorsten Gjeldsted suspects that someone has manipulated the test results to hide a disturbing side effect. When no one believes him, he teams up with two students to investigate: Anna, who has recently experienced traumatic grief herself, and Shadi, whose statistical skills might prevent her from living a quiet life in the shadows. Together, these sleuthing academics try to discover what’s really happening before the drug becomes widely available.
Blue Notes is brimming with ethical and existential ideas about the search for identity and one’s place in the world, while offering a highly original literary adventure that ultimately underscores the healing power of love.
Praise for Blue Notes (Literature in Translation Series)
"A touching meditation on love and loss and what it means to be truly human.” —Elyse Friedman, author of The Opportunist
“Blue Notes is well written, well oiled, and well researched. The novel’s strength lies in the author’s ability to portray the different ways grief can manifest: she uses the individual characters and their lives to open up a discussion about whether grief is really a disease or ‘merely’ an inevitable reaction to loss. This is what you might call a novel with contemporary relevance.” —Jyllands-Posten, Denmark
"A captivating novel about grief, science, and love. I was hooked from the start.” —Anettes Litteratursalon, Denmark
“Anne Cathrine Bomann writes about grief in the most beautiful way, and the first chapters hit me right in the heart. The novel’s greatest asset is its strong characters, as well as the genuinely moving descriptions of how it feels to be mired in profound grief... It is a fascinating, well-written, and thought-provoking book, and I highly recommend it.” —Hverdagsbog, Denmark
"A touching meditation on love and loss and what it means to be truly human.” —Elyse Friedman, author of The Opportunist