The Night Guest by Hildur Knútsdóttir

The Night Guest PDF by debut Norwegian novelist Hildur Knútsdóttir turns up the tension into something far more terrifying. The Night Guest moves through the streets of Reykjavik compounding anxieties to a suffocating degree in this story of a woman tormented by troubling sleep habits that could spell doom for all those around her.

Though, infusing the creepy with critiques on society, Knútsdóttir shows how the daily life of a woman is drenched in enough dread already. Wonderfully translated here into the the english by Mary Robinette Kowal, it’s a quick novel that certainly pulls you along for the ride on foreboding prose that captures the feeling of blood turning to ice in your veins.

While the occasional sense that the writing betrays the scaffolding attempting to mesh the themes together and a rather abrupt and fairly unsuccessful ending mar the experience, it still makes for a chilling read with a build-up pushing you to the precipice of terror at every turn.

Blending the possibility of a haunting with the daily terrors of being a woman in a patriarchal society and the ways we haunt ourselves through our digital footprints, Knútsdóttir’s The Night Guest affects a slow burn and ponderous panic where sleep is anything but relief.

About The Night Guest PDF