Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

 Inspired by real events.

Iceland, 1829. The District Commissioner Blondal pays a visit to a District Officer Jonsdottir, forcing him and his family to keep someone in custody in their tiny hut until execution. Agnes is being accused of murder and is being moved to an isolated farm in northern Iceland to await her execution. Reverend Toti agreed “to visit the condemned woman, and he had questioned his decision every day since.”

Margaret, Jonsdottir’s wife, disapproves of being forced to shelter a convict. But she is very practical and Agnes, who was a servant once, is being made useful and put to many daily chores.

In a tiny hut where the whole family lives, Agnes shares her story with Reverend Toti. When he listens to her story, the whole family does, as it is hard not to in such small space. Upon hearing her version of the story and seeing her every day’s hard work and her being knowledgeable and helpful in dire situations with other people, they start questioning the accusations. Is it too late to help her?

I was grasped by Agnes’s story. It felt like I was one of those listeners at that tiny dim hut, listening intently to her story. Some aspects of her life are heart-warming of step-mother who influenced her thinking, and some aspects are heart-wrenching of sad poverty of Icelanders, a situation that forced her to be working on many farms instead of just one; of being a pauper.

The beautiful and skillful prose takes a reader to a different place and time, giving a very good sense of that place, cold and daunting landscape, and time of simple huts filled with mold and affecting the residents’ health, and lots of every day farm duties.

The story is grippingly presented that makes you want to rush through the pages, the humanity breathed into characters fills you with deep sympathy for the heroine and others, and the striking prose makes you want to linger over this story.

Released in 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company