It was a gloomy and rainy day when the man drove toward the island. To Lea’s funeral. For fifty years, he had known that he would one day return to Gräsö and confront them all. Now, that time had come. He worried though that he was too late, Lea was dead and her son close to retirement. What could he take from a man who had already lived his life?
When Lea Höjer dies, the people on the island of Gräsö gather at the local church to bid their final farewells. During the ceremony, a man enters, and as soon as Lea’s son Walter catches his eye, he is transported back to that summer. It was the summer of 1955 when the travelers had arrived on the island and neither the islanders nor their unspoken leader Lea had welcomed them. Outsiders were not wanted here, but the travelers had set up their amusement park anyways.
However, Walter had found the visitors intriguing, and as a welcomed change on an island marked by its long history and tightknit community. Among the travelers was Hana, a woman who with just one single glance made him forget his destiny and purpose in life. Soon, they were spending those early summer nights with each other, dreaming about a different life together. But on Midsummer’s Eve, everything went awry. A spark turned into a fire, and soon the flames were reaching for the sky. With the funfair being burned to the ground, Hana was gone before long, leaving Walter behind with their dreams scattered along with the ashes.
The unknown visitor at the funeral sparks Walter’s memories and interest in the mysterious events that scandalized the island fifty years ago. While sorting through Lea’s belongings, he discovers nine unopened letters addressed to his sister, who left the island that very same summer and never heard from again. Could the letters give Walter an answer to what really happened when the funfair burned down, and finally bring him peace? What secrets have his mother kept all these years? And who is the stranger at the funeral, and why does he seem to hide his true intentions?
With a delicate eye for detail, Catrin Ormestad vividly captures a bygone era when people left their doors unlocked and the future held infinite possibilities, but also a time when it was made clear that outsiders were not welcome. The Ninth Letter is a thoughtful novel about a countryside in change, where farms are turned into summer houses, paddocks disappear, and old wisdom forgotten. With a sharp pen, Ormestad writes with great insight about first love, family secrets, and the pivotal choices that shape our lives.
Author
Reviews
“It is almost unfathomable that this is a debut novel! […] What an amazing storyteller Catrin Ormestad is! […] A pleasure to read.”
Expressen (SE)
“As early as in the prologue, Catrin Ormestad succeeds in catching the reader in a thrilling grip […]. I am amazed at the lucidity of the places and scents. The cabbage butterflies that flutter around the shaw. The cows that burp thyme and chervil. Chicken curry prepared in the pressure cooker. […] In her unconstrained, precise language, we find everything we need to know.”
Svenska Dagbladet (SE)
“What Ormestad portrays, against a backdrop of lilacs and Midsummer celebrations, is a Sweden in decline. […] With long flashbacks to the distant fifties, the author builds an intrigue similar to that of a crime novel, revolving around guilt, xenophobia and personal responsibility. It is enthralling. […] The other drama, the one detailing the last summer with the cows, is told with a soft intensity. And with a pathos which never needs raise its voice.”
Dagens Nyheter (SE)
“Ormestad has woven a thrilling intrigue that drives the reader forward through this quite extensive novel. […] at the bottom [of the story] are essential questions about how we choose to live our lives. […] Ormestad has made a fine debut.”
Göteborgs-Posten (SE)
“In many ways, I feel her own book is similar to those juicy, melodramatic serials. Maybe Strindberg’s stories from the sea band too. Or Vilhelm Moberg’s rustic epos. […] To be able to understand what is happening today, both psychologically and socially, Catrin Ormestad recreates this. Gräsö is a scorching summer paradise with dark shadows. A tiny world that mirrors the big one. […] But I devour a straight up fascinating and thrilling novel.”
Arbetarbladet (SE)
“Ormestad is a skilled storyteller; there is a perfect balance between the story’s now and then, and previously incomprehensible causations are uncovered step by step, not least thanks to the ninth letter from Lea, which has waited to be read for a long time. All according to the dictum ‘old sins cast long shadows’, but where the sins might as well be collective. […] The Ninth Letter [is] one of the most captivating and stylistically impressive novels of the classical cut that I have read in a long time.”
Upsala Nya Tidning (SE)
“The prejudiced one might believe that gruesome murders and the police are needed to create a truly satisfactory suspense novel, but The Ninth Letter, with its subtle storytelling filled with details of Gräsö in Roslagen, should prove this wrong. […] Each chapter in The Ninth Letter begins with a quote from a handbook for illusionists. Not only does it set the theme for each puzzle piece in this suspense novel, but it also reminds the reader what the unknown man from the funeral says at one point: that the first thing every illusionist learns is that the audience wants to be deceived. The same could be said about the reader, to read is to want to lose oneself and a skilled author knows how to benefit from this urge. I have no doubts regarding Catrin Ormestad’s ability, this is a truly impressive debut.”
Borås Tidning (SE)
“It is also a page turner that Catrin Ormestad has written, which prompts reading it all in one sitting, about buried dreams and suppressed emotions. With a deep knowledge of loneliness and island mentality, but also a love to the place and cultivation of the land, it seems to me.”
Sveriges Radio (SE)
“It is not often you see a debut author of Catrin Ormestad’s caliber as we see in The Ninth Letter. Here is a colorful story, thrilling, elaborate and with a language that makes you shiver. The slightly enigmatic tone, the many exact observations and the tonality make this depiction of love from the archipelago island of Gräsö an impressive original work through and through.”
Upsala Nya Tidning (SE)
“I want to begin by stating that it is a truly impressive and well composed [literary debut]. […] Ormestad succeeds in evading the clichés and draws convincing portrayals of her many characters in the novel – both the islanders and the travelers. With a well-balanced and melodious prose, she binds together a story that is ultimately about people’s crucial life choices and dreams – about leaving and staying behind . These are also classic themes. But this particular story has never been told before.”
Tidningen Vi (SE)
“Strong debut novel in a bygone summer landscape, about prejudice, loss and maybe reconciliation. Suspenseful like a thriller.”
Fokus (SE)
“The Ninth Letter is a novel about prejudice and love. And the uncertain question, which of the two is the strongest. […] Catrin Ormestad makes a strong and confident debut. She uses her own experiences of residing in different cultures, where ‘home’ and ‘away’ are ambivalent places and destinations. An entertaining and captivating novel with a thought-provoking message, in a time where streams of refugees and immigration are breaking our isolation and pose new questions. Read it!”
Norrköpings Tidningar (SE)