Eurydice’s Night (Eurydikes Natt)
Karin and Alfred are in their final year of high school. On a night Karin is babysitting Alfred’s younger siblings, she is sexually assaulted by one of his closest friend. This is the night that brings them closer together, yet from then on their relationship fills with both shock and infatuation as the aftermaths of that night draw them together whilst also pushing them apart. Following both Karin and Alfred’s perspectives, the story explores the vulnerability of youth when confronted with the harshest realities of life, heightened by the two’s vastly different childhoods as they come of age in a moment of pain.
Eurydice’s Night is a novel about the forces that are set in motion when a woman makes herself vulnerable to love. It is about Karin and Alfred, their budding romance and the carefree days of student life but it is also about the terrible night that pushes Karin towards something very dark. Karin becomes Eurydice; Eurydice becomes Karin – and to be able to love it seems necessary to die twice.
In Eurydice’s Night, August Prize-winning author Elin Cullhed writes with quiet rage, crafting a vibrant and chilling requiem for the moment when childhood has just ended and adult life is on the cusp of unfolding.
Praise for EURYDICE’S NIGHT:
“Elin Cullhed challenges interpretations that seek confirmation of established truths. Reading her new novel means encountering not stereotypes, but individuals you believe in and engage with. (…) So, for those who long for something that resists the fleeting nature of time, shameless lies, and false promises: pick it up and read! Slowly.”
– Dagens Nyheter
‘The language is wonderful, the plot is well constructed, and the myth is skillfully woven into it, both in the background and in the story itself...”
– Goteborg Posten
“Elin Cullhed moves both knowledgeably and skillfully along the misty paths that wind through the no man's land where the drama unfolds. [...] As in her debut novel and the August Prize-winning Euphoria, the narrator observes the people around her with razor-sharp analytical skills, which this time also makes me, as a reader, examine my own relationships.”
- Svenska Dagbladet
“In this novel, Elin Cullhed has provided us with a whole new narrative and broadened the story of what it means to be human.”
– Aftonbladet
“Elin Cullhed's portrait of these two lost souls is nuanced, with all its contradictions and lack of logic.”
- Expressen
‘Karin has learned not to take up space, never to draw attention to herself, having grown up in the shadow of her moody mother and acting-out older sister.
She is in her last term of high school and something is changing. She is beginning to find her feet and become visible, visible to Alfred, who falls in love with her, and she with him. But then Alfred's friend assaults her and everything is turned upside down. Cullhed has a fantastic way with words and writes beautifully about love and abuse, lust and pain, art and inspiration. Eurydice's Night is a beautiful book about a difficult subject.’
- BTJ - National Library Network
