“I promise. I’ll give you Edvin, as he was. But first I have to tell you about the end. "
“This summer is going to be different,” she told her children. They traveled on vacation to the mountains. Edvin, her son, would be turning seven after the vacation and was looking forward to getting his own room. Two days before they were set to leave the cabin, Edvin got a headache. A few hours later, he was dead.
A helpless family is left behind. What really happened? Where is Edvin now, and how can they manage to continue with their lives after this? Turn Around is written by a mother trying to find her way through the chaos, and an attempt to write about who Edvin really was.
“One early morning, I woke up with a sudden pain in my chest. I had been dreaming. How I was rummaging, looking for a place where Edvin was not dead, or for a place where they did not know he was dead. I pondered for a while, and then I realized: I could travel to the end of the world. Where I was, Edvin was dead, because I was carrying his death with me."
It is brutal, shocking, and upsetting, but also beautiful and illuminating. Through completely ordinary and everyday flashbacks, memories, diary entries, and reflections, we get to know Edvin.
Stavanger Aftenblad
Important about grief, magnificent about love. Turn around. Edvin’s book leaves the reader with a deep feeling of love. The road to it is almost unbearable.
NRK
Some books really have a deep affect on you – like when a mother writes about the very worst thing that can happen: Losing a child. TURN AROUND – Edvin’s book – conveys a raw grief, but at the same time manages to draw the reader into intense reflections.
VG
A powerful, heartbreaking, warm, wise, uplifting and thought-provoking book about a grief that is almost unbearable. Turn Around is a moving, devastating book written for anyone who’s ever loved someone.
Aftenposten
The tremendous strength in Turn Around comes from its ability to articulate the chaotic, unfiltered grief as Tungen experienced it – from the first shock to a diminished version of everyday life. At the same time, it also looks at the bigger picture, reflecting on what the death of a child does to those who are left behind, not to mention what it is that a mourner needs.
Vårt Land
Intimate, shocking, and beautiful book about losing a child.Bergens Tidende
It is brutal, shocking, and upsetting, but also – strangely enough – beautiful and illuminating. Through completely ordinary and everyday flashbacks, memories, diary entries, and reflections, we get to know Edvin and his family better. …Edvins bok is her strongest publication to date.
Stavanger Aftenblad
Turn Around is an exposed, painful book that left at least this reader deeply moved. It is also well-composed, alternating between shorter and longer chapters, with some written in short prose style and format – and built up in a way that also allows us to follow a process that must have been even more chaotic in reality.
Dag og Tid
