A review by flogigyahoo
The Cold Song by Linn Ullmann

2.0

Linn Ullmann's novel, The Cold Song, has ben on my WTR list since it came out, and I was glad to see it while visiting my family this holiday season. Ullmann tells the story of Siri and Jon, their strange marriage, 2 daughters Alma and Liv, Siri's alcoholic mother, Jenny, and Milla, the young au pair who goes missing. Siri runs restaurants, Jon is a well known writer who cannot write anymore, and a philanderer, Alma is a very precocious, weird child who is hard to understand, Jenny cannot stop grieving for her dead son, who drowned when he was 12 while Siri watched. Ullmann weaves her story from one character to the next, returning to the same scene again and again, even from one character's point of view. Too too much. The tragedy of Milla is not the important story here and it should be. At over 300 pages this novel is much too long.