Granaattiomena

With her son away in Rome, where she sent him hoping he would enjoy himself and give her some time to herself, a 68-year-old writer is left alone with her thoughts. He is in his thirties, gay, withdrawn and living on a disability pension; she suffers from a painful foot complaint caused by diabetes, and he mockingly calls her Queen Nerve-Foot. Going back over his childhood, she wonders whether she dominated him without realising it, and whether his father ought to have been a stronger example. Guilt, suffering and fate run through the book, which reads the Oedipus myth from the mother's side, reaches back to classical literature and Finnish folk poetry, and lets the radicalism of the 1970s argue with the animal-rights activists of the 2000s.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

469 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Finland

First published

2002 by WSOY

Author's age

69 when first published

ISBN

9789510273197 (original)