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Reviews

"Helle has enchanting gifts as a storyteller… an immediacy that tenderly and consistently compels." — The New York Times

"One of my favorite Danish writers—she’s the master." — The Guardian

"Helle Helle’s minimalism isn’t boring; it crackles with mystery. It’s the every day, and yet it’s insistently beautiful." — Weekendavisen

"Helle Helle's They sharply renders the startling and singular specifics of a life: hairspray, glass trolls, radiators, crocheted curtains, shrimps, baguettes, liver pâté, harem pants, peacoats, denim skirts, the selling of milk, eggs and soap, fried eggs, pineapple, peaches and cheese, garlic, condensed milk, jam, terry-cloth, lemonade, female guitarists, cans of tomato soup, Band-Aids, rustic whole grain bread, cold spaghetti. All this within the binary star gravitational pull of a mother-daughter relationship peering into the void of the mother's sudden, almost certainly terminal, illness. It's a book about class, memory, and the texture of time itself. I'm now a Helle Helle completist." — Rita Bullwinkel

"Lyrical and understated. Readers will relish this simple tribute to the preciousness of days spent with loved ones." — Publishers Weekly

"The grammar of Danish writer Helle's sentences, a sort of not-quite present sense conveys extraordinarily well the sense of small-town life where experiences repeat so frequently they might almost be timeless... Almost everything one expects from a novel has been left out, yet nothing is missing." — Michael Autrey, Booklist

"Helle Helle's they is a deceptively slight, minimalist novel that packs a huge emotional punch in its superb translation from Danish by acclaimed translator Martin Aitken. Each austere sentence brings a wealth of information about the mother-daughter relationship at the center of the narrative. Helle is an exquisite stylist who details both the sensory surfaces of life and the intimacy inherent in any interaction." — Elizabeth DeNorma, Shelf Awareness

"Equally attuned to mundanity and morality, they is a novel suffused with a daily grace, documenting the cozy details of mother and daughter's life, the small pleasures of cheese toast and comfy clothes, and the way dread thrums alongside dailiness, each giving the other a different cast." — Meghan Racklin, Brooklyn Rail

"Strangely, wonderfully absorbing... Slow your heart, slow your attention span—you'll be mesmerized." — Luke Kennard, Telegraph

"In her new novel, they, translated by Martin Aitken, the Danish writer Helle Helle captures with uncanny grace the relationship between an unnamed mother and her sixteen-year-old daughter following the former's cancer diagnosis... A world of loss and lyricism follows." — Brian Dillon, 4Columns

"Helle Helle's they, in a meticulous translation by the acclaimed Martin Aitken, is a novel about the past and the present and what happens when one of a close-knit pair has a curtailed future. There is no sentimentality in this beautiful novel, but adjustment, compassion and wonder... A marvel. " — The Irish Times

"A beautiful contrast to the ceaseless pace of modern life, this Danish translation feels otherworldly in today’s fiction. A slice of life rendered beautifully, it is at once relatable and reflective, forcing readers to contemplate their own lives and striving to bring more of the quiet Helle renders into their own lives." — Mia Foster, The Chicago Review of Books

"Sweetly oriented to a disciplined, detached way of telling, Helle balances glassy brilliance with radiant feeling. Unyielding and firm, they is a work of glorious, serene grace" — Isabella Gullifer-Laurie, The Saturday Paper

"Whimsical, charming and tremendously moving, the act of observation becomes a form of commemoration, honouring the preciousness of moments spent together. The patience of the narrative and steadiness of observation becomes a way of holding onto things, of staying with events that have already happened or are yet to come." — Declan Fry, ABC News

"Precise, controlled and unforgettable, they is a book that begs the reader to slow down and take notice." — Jude Cook, The Guardian