THE TRICKING OF FREYA
Christina Sunley
St. Martin's Press
Fiction
ISBN: 9780312378776
In the Icelandic Sagas, Freyja is a goddess of sacrifice and magic. For Freya, the eponymous narrator of Christina Sunley's debut novel, THE TRICKING OF FREYA, Iceland is the motherland --- a place of poetry, magic and dark memories.
Freya Morris was raised in the North American Icelandic diaspora. Her family came to Canada after a devastating volcanic eruption in 1875, settling in the “New Iceland” community of Manitoba. Her grandfather was the celebrated Olafur, Skald Nyja Islands, Poet of New Iceland, and her grandmother was a proud Icelandic woman, keeper of her family's genealogy and town librarian. Her mother, Anna, after marrying her American father, moves to Connecticut where she eventually raises Freya. Her mother's sister, the brilliant, beautiful and wild Ingibjorg, is known as Birdie; though her name implies flight, she never left home.
Freya doesn’t meet her Icelandic family until she’s seven, when she travels to the town of Gimli where the Icelandic culture is strong. Immediately she is enthralled with Birdie who speaks to her in Icelandic, regales her with traditional stories and promises to teach her how to fly. Freya soon learns, however, that Birdie has a dark side and a mean streak that come out when her mania turns to depression. There is a tension between Birdie and Anna, and Freya's loyalty to each is constantly challenged. Over the years Freya is pulled between her quiet and conservative mother (who is disabled in a freak accident that Freya blames herself for) and the passionate yet unstable Birdie. It all changes, though, the year Freya turns 14.
Just before her 14th birthday, Birdie kidnaps Freya and takes her on a dangerous trip to Iceland, where again Freya's loyalty to and love for her aunt are put to the test. After she is returned to her mother, she never sees her aunt again. In fact, she doesn't return to Gimli for many years, and in the meantime lives a lonely life in New York trying to forget her Icelandic heritage and the pain her aunt caused her. She finds herself back in Gimli to celebrate her grandmother's birthday and overhears a secret that again takes her to Iceland in search of the truth about what her family kept hidden for decades.
THE TRICKING OF FREYA is a fantastic story, full of myth and legend, family drama, epic landscapes, the search for identity, a sense of belonging and unconditional love. Freya is a tough character: she has had a life of loss and disappointment punctuated by moments of profound beauty and meaning. Sunley deftly weaves in real Icelandic and Norse history, Icelandic literature, culture and language into her tale, giving it a seriousness and depth that is compelling, romantic and readable.
Though the climax of the book is somewhat predictable and the end a bit too tidy, readers will find Freya's tale of sorrow, guilt and redemption thought-provoking and Freya's journey of sacrifice and magic well worthwhile. Sunley's narration is lovely and often brutal, poetic and dark. Overall, THE TRICKING OF FREYA is an accomplished debut.
--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman
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