Elias, a young man in his early twenties, thrives on order. He arranges his surroundings meticulously, yet each place he inhabits follows its own chaotic rhythm.
Elias lives in a sort of collective with three of his high school friends. In their house, he leads a bleak existence alongside them. They seem devoid of ambition, as if they’ve drifted into a black hole after a long, drawn-out party and most of the time they smoke weed and play video games. Soon, their once-vibrant space begins to rot, invaded by rats and falling into decay.
At a New Year’s Eve party, Elias meets Marie. She is four years his senior, and literally throws herself at him. At first he is unsure whether to pursue the relationship, but with time Elias finds himself enveloped in a deep love with Marie. However, their relationship is also marred by Marie’s anxiety, which creates a widening chasm between them that Elias struggles to bridge.
Elias is only working out of necessity and takes a job in a fully automated warehouse. Here the logic of demand dominates, with workers reduced to mechanical distributors. They lift packages while carrying the weight of their personal stories, finding subtle ways to subvert the system.
As time passes, Elias feels as though he is living in three separate worlds; Marie, the house and the warehouse. Each world demands something different from him, offering fleeting freedom from the other two. Can he continue to balance these fractured realities, or will they ultimately collapse under the weight of their own existence?
Author
Reviews
“Jonas Eika makes their literary debut with an exquisite, woozy book about falling in love and decay.”
– Weekendavisen (DK)
“The perspective that generally carries the novel maintains a fine balance […] Jonas Eika’s debut is more than promising.”
– Politiken (DK)
“Linguistically, the debutant works effectively with the contrasts between the different tracks in life, and the depictions of the efficiently managed working life stand in stark contrast to the poetic fluttering lightness in the descriptions of the fragile love for Marie. […] As a whole, The House, Marie, the Warehouse is both an exciting and promising debut.”
– Berlingske (DK)
“[The House, Marie, the Warehouse] is a book that finds beauty in the extremes, but it’s also a work that demonstrates that drawing boundaries is a requirement and an existential necessity if we want to function as humans.”
– Litteratursiden (DK)
“The book is a workplace-novel, combined with another novel that is about being very, very in love. It was an incredibly stunning debut.”
– The Jury of the Nordic Council Literature Prize