Paperback Edition
ISBN: 9780935312812
Publication Date: 12-01-1988

Translated by Margaret S. Lacy

Originally published in Sweden in 1936, this novel is told through the eyes of seven-year-old Mia, as she observes her mother’s relationship with her handsome but hard-drinking and unfaithful husband. Booklist calls the novel “a poignant, yet unsettling documentary story that transcends time and place in its depiction of the struggles of the working poor, deserving of a place alongside such notables as Sinclair Lewis, Ole Rolvaag, and John Steinbeck."

"A poignant, yet unsettling documentary story that transcends time and place in its depiction of the struggles of the working poor, deserving of a place alongside such notables as Sinclair Lewis, Ole Rolvaag, and John Steinbeck." —Booklist

"I can't think of anything written before this to match Martinson's depiction of women and children on the edge, the bonds between mothers and daughters. At the same time, the book speaks to all our problems today, the care of children by women alone; alcoholism; the desperation of poverty; what it is to be a child growing up in a world that is too busy to pay attention. And Mia/Moa is such a marvelous child. This is a book to love, to cherish, to come back to, to teach from, to hand to friends. A beautiful, exciting, touchstone book." —Tille Olsen, author of Tell Me a Riddle