The Kindness Of Your Nature

Linda Olsson

Penguin

Otago Daily Times , October 15th 2011

Linda Olsson’s first two novels, Let Me Sing You Gentle Songs and Sonata for Miriam, have already brought her popular and critical acclaim. Her credentials are confirmed by her third offering, The Kindness of Your Nature, the story of a woman reclaiming the name of her childhood and with the chance of a new beginning.

Despite living for many years in a small North Island community, Swedish-born Marion Flint has always held herself apart from those around her. Her isolation intensifies as she transforms herself from doctor to artist, until all that exists is the beach and the never-ending sea. The only intrusion into her solitary world comes in the form of a young, autistic boy she finds lying on the beach like a piece of jetsam. Although she knows nothing other than his name, Ika, he gradually becomes a regular fixture of her life.

Over the course of a year they establish a routine, a shared lunch every Thursday after which he disappears back to wherever he comes from. Then one afternoon Marion finds his battered body in the surf, lurid bruises a silent testament to brutal abuse. Determined to protect him, she contacts Ika’s grandmother and arranges for him to live with her, and in so doing initiates changes that will ultimately heal them both.

The narrative alternates between present and past as Marion is forced to reconnect with a childhood she has buried, losses so painful they destroyed her trust in the universe. Although the novel touches on themes from Olsson’s other work – the transformative power of music, the isolation of being an immigrant in another culture – Marion’s voice is powerfully individual. The clear, uncluttered prose allows the tragedy outlined to speak for itself, and tells us as much about the narrator as the events she describes.

Haunting and beautiful, The Kindness of Your Nature is a reminder of the fragility of happiness and the impossibility of living without hope. 

https://www.odt.co.nz/entertainment/books/credentials-confirmed-story-new-beginnings