Alberta and Freedom

This, the second book in the Alberta trilogy, breaks with the past in more ways than one. While the first book concerned itself with the struggles of an adolescent girl growing up in a cold and alienating small town in Northern Norway, the first book examines Alberta's life seven years later. She is now a woman living on the fringe of the expatriate artist community in Paris, and she struggles to maintain her autonomy, develop her voice as a writer, and stave off crushing loneliness and poverty. Sandel is a master of Norwegian prose fiction, and although Alberta's situation is often desperate, the writing is always exquisite.