True

There is no cure left for Elsa's cancer. Saying goodbye to her husband Martti, to their daughter Eleonoora and to the grandchildren, she no longer has the energy for pretence, and so she confides in her granddaughter Anna about Eeva, the nanny who nearly wrecked her marriage half a century ago. Two strands alternate: in one, Martti cares for his wife at the end of her life; in the other, set in the 1960s, he falls for the young woman who helped in the house and who came to love little Eleonoora, Ella, as her own. Anna is given only scraps of what happened, and soon fills the gaps with a story of her own making, partly to console herself.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

332 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Love (assigned by AI)

Set in

Finland, 1960s and present day

First published

2010 by Otava

Author's age

30 when first published

ISBN

9789511229650 (original)

9781590515006 (Other Press, United States)

9781921844690 (Scribe, Australia)

More

Wikidata