Beyond the shallows is an intimate and sensory portrait of a young girl in a transitional period, where both she and the society around her are undergoing significant changes. Ingeborg’s childhood is turning into a memory, and the uncertainty of the future and new emotions looms heavily over her. Ingeborg yearns beyond the protective shallows that surrounds the island, but there is also another longing burning within her. Is it the kindred spirit she finds in Olaug, who lives on the other side of the island, or is there something deeper and more profound between them, something that will make life with others on the island impossible?
The strain of feeling like a stranger in a closed island community in the early 1960s, where the direction of life is mostly predetermined from birth, is more burdensome and isolating than in today’s society. Thus, the core of the novel lies in the unspoken. This is not a historical novel meant to showcase another era. Another era is utilized to make us, as humans, more visible.
Beyond the Shallows is a book about daring to take one’s own path or conforming to the safety of the community.
Martin Baldysz has something few other authors have: An eye for plot and for creating tension in a text, and at the same time, a great poetic power in his lyrics.
Sondre Midtun, Editor at Samlaget
Baldysz writes beautifully and is skilled at creating atmosphere.
Klassekampen, on The Cairns
