“So gripping I wanted to rush through the pages, but so beautifully written I wanted to linger over every sentence. Hannah Kent’s debut novel is outstanding.”
— Madeline Miller, author of The Song of Achilles
“Hannah Kent creates the atmosphere of rural Iceland in the 1800’s with flawless accuracy– a haunting read.”
— Chelsey Catterall, Indigo Bookseller
Burial Rites: a brilliant literary debut, inspired by a true story: the final days of a young woman accused of murder in Iceland in 1829.
Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who, charged with the brutal murder of her former master, is sent to an isolated farm to await execution.
Horrified at the prospect of housing a convicted murderer, the family at first avoids Agnes. Only Tóti, a priest Agnes has mysteriously chosen to be her spiritual guardian, seeks to understand her. But as Agnes’s death looms, the farmer’s wife and their daughters learn there is another side to the sensational story they've heard. And as the days to her execution draw closer, the question burns: did she or didn’t she?
The Indigo Blog is pleased to share an excerpt from this moving and compelling new novel.
***
“Pabbi!” Steina’s voice rang down the corridor. “You’ll never guess who we have to keep locked up in our house!”
“Locked up?” Margrét twisted around to query her elder daughter, who had just bounced into the room. “Oh, Steina, you’re sopping.”
Steina looked down at her soaked apron and shrugged. “I dropped the buckets and had to go back and fill them up again. Pabbi, Blöndal’s forcing us to keep Agnes Magnúsdóttir in our home!”
“Agnes Magnúsdóttir?” Margrét turned to Lauga, horrified.
“Yes, the murderess, Mamma!” Steina exclaimed, untying her wet apron and carelessly flinging it onto the bed next to her. “The one who killed Natan Ketilsson!”
“Steina! I was just about to explain to Pabbi—”
“And Pétur Jónsson, Mamma.”
“Steina!”
“Oh, Lauga, just because you wanted to tell them.”
“You ought not to interrupt—”
“Girls!” Jón stood up, his arms outstretched. “Enough. Begin from the start, Lauga. What happened?”
Lauga hesitated, then told her parents everything she could remember about the District Commissioner’s visit, her face growing flushed as she recited what she recalled reading in the letter.
Before she had finished, Jón began to dress again.
“Surely this is not something we are obliged to do!” Margrét tugged at her husband’s sleeve, but Jón shrugged her off, refusing to look at his wife’s distraught face.
“Jón,” Margrét murmured. She glanced over at her daughters, who both sat with their hands in their laps, watching their parents silently.
Jón pulled his boots back on, whipping the ties around his ankle. The leather squeaked as he pulled them tight.
“It’s too late, Jón,” Margrét said. “Are you going to Hvammur? They’ll all be asleep.”
“Then I’ll wake them.” He picked up his riding hat from its nail, took his wife by the shoulders and gently shifted her out of his way. Nodding farewell to his daughters, he strode out of the room, down the corridor and shut the door to the croft behind him.
“What shall we do, Mamma?” Lauga’s small voice came from a
dark corner of the room.
Margrét closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
***
After they decide I must leave, the Stóra-Borg men sometimes tie my legs together in the evening, as they do with the forelegs of horses, to ensure I will not run away. It seems that with each passing day I become more like an animal to them, another dull-eyed beast to feed
with what can be scraped together and to be kept out of the weather. They leave me in the dark, deny me light and air, and when I must be moved, they bind and lead me where they will.
They never speak to me here. In winter, in the badstofa, I could always hear myself breathing, and I’d get scared to swallow for fear the whole room might hear it. The only sounds to keep a body company then were the rustling of Bible pages and whisperings. I’d catch my
name on the lips of others, and I knew it wasn’t in blessing. Now, when they are forced by law to read out the words of a letter or proclamation, they talk as if addressing someone behind my shoulder. They refuse to meet my eyes.
You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, have been found guilty of accessory to murder. You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, have been found guilty of arson, and conspiracy to murder. You, Agnes Magnúsdóttir, have been sentenced to death. You, Agnes. Agnes.
They don’t know me.
I remain quiet. I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away. I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt. The poems composed as I washed and scythed and cooked until my hands were raw. The sagas I know by heart. I am sinking all I have left and going underwater. If I speak, it will be in bubbles of air. They will not be able to keep my words for themselves. They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say “Agnes” and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there.
***
Thanks to our friends at Hachette Books for facilitating this teaser.
Excerpted from Burial Rites by Hannah Kent. Excerpted by permission of Hachette Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.