Heaven and Hell by Jón Kalman Stefánsson

Heaven and Hell is set in Iceland around the start of the 20th Century, and it concerns a boy named Bardur, and a boy who goes unnamed. Both are taken as passengers on a fishing boat, but they’re caught in a storm and Bardur has forgotten his waterproof because, symbolically enough for a book with this title, he was reading Paradise Lost. He dies of the cold, and the unnamed boy grieves for him. But this grieving takes on the form of a quest as he makes the journey – and a perilous one it is, in a world where forgetting one item of clothing can kill you – to return the book to its owner in a far off town. Once he gets there, he finds all kinds of different stories, those of the people of the town. This is a haunting book, with a simple, if occasionally philosophical style. The book is told in the third person, but also in the present tense, which is a fitting choice because it reflects an immediacy in lives that can be (and sometimes are) taken away suddenly, but also brings reader and character closer as the book goes on. A very enjoyable historical novel. [Ryan Agee]