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On the ninth floor of her apartment building, Stella falls in love with Martin, the man who delivers her olive green couch. Stella and Martin sit on that couch, make love on that couch, and eat on that couch. Their children play on that couch. Several years later a fat, unattractive detective questions Martin about Stella's death from that couch.
More a character study than a mystery, STELLA DESCENDING is deceptively larger than its 247 pages. It is not a study in cheerful characters either. Each of them seems to possess peculiar, even unnatural, quirks. Linn Ullmann has a vivid imagination when it comes to creating personalities. She has brought together a group of dysfunctional people with little or no joy in their lives, the possible exception being Stella, who finds snatches of it on a rare occasion --- and often on that olive green couch.
While the book is titled STELLA DESCENDING, I found myself wondering who the story was really about. Maybe it is simply an analysis of life, a look at people in miserable situations. Despite the dark tenor of the story, much of the prose here sings. Conversations share the banter of familiarity while the descriptions are full and rich. Ullman can definitely write.
The mystery comes in when Martin and Stella teeter on the edge of their rooftop, nine floors above the streets of Oslo. They embrace. She falls. Or maybe he pushed her. The witnesses cannot seem to agree. Corinne, a police detective with an uncanny nose for guilt, carries on her investigation in the form of interviews, mostly with the widower Martin. The interviews take a rather unconventional form. Corinne sits across the dining room table from Martin --- or on the olive green couch --- first telling him stories and then asking him to tell her stories. She seems to scrutinize his answers but has already made up her mind about his involvement. Stella's oldest daughter, Amanda, is convinced her stepfather murdered her mom.
Most of her narration, however, deals with her adolescent sexual appetite and her attitude toward those around her, which on her best day is disdainful. She comes off as exceptionally self-centered, even for a teenager. Axel, a 70-something friend of Stella, incessantly grouses about being alive. Occasionally, though, he does reminisce, indulging himself in fond memories of tall, slim Stella. But aside from the warmth he feels at those times, he is a walking definition of the word "cantankerous". I'd add "old coot." And then there's Martin. His motivations appear nonsensical and left me wondering whether he was entirely sane. He has some wholly inappropriate dreams about his daughter, tells the children horrific tales, and seems to vacillate between love and disgust for Stella.
Martin, Stella, Amanda and the bit players all have many, and unique, dimensions. Ullman builds them layer upon layer and allows us to see inside their thoughts --- thoughts mostly from the dark side, and very unhappy ones. STELLA DESCENDING is worth a read if only for the character sketches.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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