Review of ONE LAST TIME by Helga Flatland

 4.5 Stars

Though the author is apparently very well-known in Norway, this is the first time I’ve encountered her writing.  This novel is of such exceptional quality that Helga Flatland deserves recognition in more than just her home country.

One Last Time examines the complexities of family relationships.  Anne, who lives alone since placing her husband in a nursing home because she can no longer provide the care he needs, is diagnosed with terminal cancer.  When she tells her son Magnus and her daughter Sigrid about her diagnosis, a range of emotions surfaces.  Sigrid in particular has had a difficult relationship with her mother, and the announcement of her mother’s impending death has her feeling fearful and guilty as she also wishes for some resolution, specifically some acknowledgement and apology from Anne for “the mistakes she made while raising Magnus and me.”

The narrative alternates between Anne and Sigrid; both provide first-person perspectives.  Sometimes the point of view changes in the middle of a conversation.  The obvious advantage of this narrative structure is that the reader sees both sides, two versions of events.  A difficulty with style is the run-on sentences; these can sometimes be confusing though they are clearly intended to suggest, like stream-of-consciousness, the continuous flow of thoughts.

What is outstanding is the characterization.  All characters emerge as fully developed, realistic people for whom the reader will feel sympathy but with whom he/she will also feel angry and frustrated.  Anne, for instance, is a strong woman who cared for her husband Gustav for years, but she paid perhaps too little attention to her children.  Sigrid thinks she had a terrible childhood because she felt abandoned by her mother who devoted herself to Gustav:  “my upbringing had harmed me, my parents’ abandonment had damaged me . . . I had more significant spiritual wounds than anybody would expect.”  One can certainly empathize with her abandonment issues, but Sigrid is also self-centred and self-pitying and is drawn to a person who accepted her narrative and “granted me long-awaited validation of my explanations and experiences.”

Seeing how Sigrid’s childhood shaped her is interesting.  Because of her mother’s distant parenting, Sigrid has become a helicopter parent, especially with her daughter Mia.  She resents Mia’s building a relationship with Jens, Mia’s father, who abandoned Sigrid and his daughter almost two decades earlier.  As a physician, Sigrid has difficulty maintaining a professional distance from patients.

Anne and Sigrid’s fraught relationship is built on decades of misunderstandings and resentments, so a nice, tidy final resolution would be unrealistic.  The two do take some tentative steps towards each other, but it is impossible to expect that years of things left unsaid can be fully expressed.  Habits established over years – ending discussions in silence or deferring “to defensiveness and thereafter to attack” – are difficult to break.  The ending, therefore, is perfect.  It is sad yet hopeful and very authentic.

The novel certainly resonated with me because last year I lost my mother to cancer.  I can identify with the devastation of a terminal cancer diagnosis and the emotions of guilt and fear experienced by Sigrid and her desire to be there to help as she also wants to escape at the same time.  The book is so grounded in reality that every reader will find something that will resonate.

There is wisdom that will remain with me:  one person’s “version of events [is] just as true and important as my own” and “it was ultimately meaningless who was right.  Neither of us was right” and “It’s not like [memories] represent the truth of things.”

Though light on plot, this book has great depth:  its characters are flawed and genuine, and its emotional realism is breath-taking.  One Last Time will not be my last time reading Helga Flatland.

Note:  I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher in return for an honest review.