This novel from the Icelandic author known as Sjon, who specializes in mind-bending miniature historical epics, I found the most accessible. Moonstone - The Boy Who Never Was takes place in isolated Reykjavik in 1918, and is his most personal.
Reykjavik has two picture houses, and sixteen year-old Mani Steinn - old enough to do what he wants - spends all his time at the cinema. He lives with the old lady in the attic above a shop and merges the film stories with his fantasies, such as owning a motorbike like Sola G.
At night, he can always catch the eye of a gentleman and earn a few kroner; he is a homosexual on the fringes of society, in a society that itself is at the fringes of the world. Closer than the threat of war, foreign sailors have brought the Spanish Flu, it quickly spreads through the cinemas where people gather. Ten thousand townspeople are infected, three hospitals overflowing. Mani is conscripted into service for the hospital and ambulance along with Sola G., witnessing many deaths, suffering, and mass burials. As the story unfolds, we learn there is a closer relationship between Mani and the author Sjon than would first appear.
Perceptive and nuanced, this was a great read. So many areas were covered yet, in such a short novel, it was neither crowded nor wanting. It's a historical novel which doesn't feel dated, and a unique look at both growing up in an isolated northern city in 1918, and how gays maneuvered in a society that denied their existence. Somehow it maintains a hopeful outlook - the details provided at the end a welcome completion.
2013 (translated 2016) / Hardcover / 147 pages
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