My Men

A spellbinding, darkly poetic literary novel that plunges us into the inner life of America's first female serial killer 'This fascinating, off-kilter novel about a female serial killer is an unexpectedly thrilling read' Karl Ove Knausgaard Seventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever - she can't quiet the screaming world inside her. When an intense affair ends brutally, she flees Norway for America at the end of the nineteenth century in search of a new life. Changing her name first to Bella, later to Belle, she is driven from any potential refuge by an unbearable tension that won't let her keep still. As Belle seeks release in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love erupts into violence. In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland imagines her way into the tumultuous inner life of the Norwegian woman who became Belle Gunness - America's first known female serial killer. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men is a radically empathetic and disquieting portrait of a woman capable of ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.

Victoria Kielland is a Norwegian writer. My Men was published to rave reviews in Norway, earning her several prizes including the Swedish Academy's Dobloug Prize and the Norwegian Academy's Thorleif Dahl Prize, of which she was the youngest ever recipient. The novel is also being translated into 14 languages. Kielland's debut short story collection, I Lyngen (In the Heather), was shortlisted for the Tarjei Vesaas First Book Prize, and her first novel, Dammyr (Marsh Pond), was shortlisted for the Youth Critics' Prize.