Behind the pompous word "patriarch" often lies a dominating father figure. Such is also the case here, but still, this patriarch – called Harald – is living in the year 2006 and does not have the same possibilities to dominate the family as despotic fathers in earlier times. Yet, since his daughter is a writer, he is able to get under her skin by virtue of his position as editor and critic for a leading newspaper. So he lambastes her latest novel in a review, one of the results of which is that father and daughter have neither seen nor spoken to one another in several years. He scarcely knows his son-in-law any longer, not to mention his granddaughter. This is one of the book’s themes. The other is the story of Helle, who, in her idealistic struggle to save the world, tends to overlook what is happening in her own life. She is oblivious of an approaching family catastrophe and only comes to her senses at the last moment. But, believe it or not, sometimes the variety of dramas that are played out here become of secondary importance as the reader is captivated by Trisse Gejl’s strong, lively style of writing. She is capable of cutting anyone and everyone to pieces with words powerful enough to evoke both giggles and gasps. In this she is incomparable. The description of the father – the great patriarch – leads one to think of the prominent feminist authors of the seventies, such as Marilyn French and Germaine Greer, and there are elements in Gejl’s use of language that is reminiscent of Fay Weldon’s. Like Weldon, Gejl is able to paint her characters using few strokes, with humor lurking between the lines. She uses choice, traditional words in new contexts, and over- and under-tones infused with an ambiguity that inspires the reader’s imagination to take flight. Another source of the hostility between Helle and her father is that he stands for old-fashioned values and takes advantage of any opportunity to combat the intrusion of other cultures on Danish soil (a phenomenon not unknown in Western societies). Helle is attracted by new currents; she wants to check out other cultures, both literarily and personally. She is particularly concerned with how a nice, little boy can develop into a terrorist. Any claim that the reader can forget all about the plot and simply delight in the author’s use of language should naturally be taken with a grain of salt, because it is precisely her use of words that drives the tale further and further. These words grab us and suck us into a universe that Gejl makes real and recognizable in the midst of an often dramatic and catastrophic landscape. Photo: © Scanpix/ Sigrid Nygaard | 
