Nenäpäivä

Irma's days in Hakaniemi follow a gentle routine: a cup at the outdoor market, chicken livers from the indoor hall, phone calls from a son she frets about. Yet something has come unstuck, and she craves company. A trip to Kerava to pick up a houseplant ends with her pressing the wrong buzzer; caught off guard, she assures the woman who answers it that she is conducting research for a polling company. The fib proves useful. Armed with muddled questionnaires and shaky explanations, she starts calling on household after household, drinking their coffee and getting attached to her 'respondents'. Weeks into this, some locals grow suspicious and phone the police. Irma panics, but cannot bring herself to drop the people she has grown to love, and each return visit raises the odds of exposure. Her voice tumbles on in long, looping sentences.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

339 pages in the original

Set in

Finland

First published

2010 by Teos

Author's age

35 when first published

ISBN

9789518513271 (original)

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Wikidata