`[a] powerful book...a fine study in role-reversal between parent and child, older brother and younger sister, and a wrenching read for anyone who has witnessed someone close suffer mental breakdown.'

`Elina Hirvonen is not a woman to shy away from big subjects and contentious issues....written in crystalline contemporary style, When I Forgot has become the most translated novel in Finnish history, its dark themes of breakdown striking a chord in the post 9/11 world it depicts.'

`[An] exemplary first novel ... a book that whets your appetite for another one'

`Compelling'

`No previous Finnish novel has had such international success as When I Forgot; its intelligence and power make this deserved'

`A sophisticated response to 9/11 and a delicately woven meditation on love and war'

This is an astonishingly assured and compelling debut novel about the love siblings have for each other, the past they share and the painful memories that shape their lives for ever.This title is intended for readers of Andrea Ashworth, Maggie O'Farrell, Ali Smith, Kate Atkinson and Vendela Vida.Anna is on her way to the hospital where her brother has been sectioned when she falters, and in that pause her world splinters for the reader into a blazing display of memory and madness, of childhood security treasured and shattered, and of families blighted by psychological trauma - her brother's and that of her boyfriend's father, a Vietnam Vet. But, in Elina Hirvonen's skilful hands, the grimness is illuminated by firecracker insight and flashes of surprising beauty. And, above all, there is hope.

2008-01-28 real atmosphere

The novel pulls you into the present and the past of the heroine and those close to her. There is a wonderful evocation of the texture of real life - sitting in cafes, clothes from Marimekko ... , and the more violent and disastrous side of life too. There was a moment when everything might have turned out differently, and it is a hard struggle to get back to normality. The narrative often uses flashbacks, but never loses clarity or impetus.