The Joyous Shore

Fortune-seeker Frank arrives from who knows where to help out with the farm until Tora’s uncle Arvid, who is somewhat unworldly, is old enough to take over. He marries Tora’s mother. But when Tora is ten years old her mother dies in childbirth. Tora is left on the farm with two men who are as different as two people can be: Frank and Arvid. One works hard to improve the farm and to earn the respect of those whose social stature has been acquired through birth, the other prefers to escape to freedom and a world of imagination. And Tora is torn between them. What begins as mutual antipathy between Frank and Tora changes as they work together. On an emotional level they grow steadily closer, but there is no question of openly showing their feelings for each other, as this would upset the balance of power between them.
Ellen Mattson has created characters that remain in the memory. She evokes these people and their world in a language which she seems to handle just as Tora’s father handles the sun: it does whatever she wants.