Not a Mother

The fourth installment in Roy Jacobsen’s bestselling Barr y Chronicles.

After a long journey through Norway, Ingrid has returned to Barr y, the island that bears her family name. The Second World War still casts its long shadow: former collaborators face cold shoulders, while others wish to leave the painful years in the past. When a boy arrives on the island, Ingrid assumes responsibility for him, and so he joins the Barr y community, raised alongside Ingrid’s own daughter, another child of war.

As letters from distant friends arrive with news of a society undergoing dramatic changes, Ingrid must decide which stories to keep to herself, and which she should she bring to light. What kind of future does she imagine--for herself, and for the children?

Born in Oslo to a family that came from northern Norway, Roy Jacobsen is the author of more than fifteen novels and a member of the Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature. The Unseen, the first of a series of novels about Ingrid and her family, was a phenomenal bestseller in Norway and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award, selected as an Indie Next pick in North America, and named a New York Times New and Noteworthy book. The Kirkus-starred and critically acclaimed White Shadow, the second Barrøy novel, was published in North America by Biblioasis in 2021.