This book’s style has a great, great deal in common with Anne Serre’s [b:The Governesses|74824874|The Governesses|Anne Serre|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1677904248l/74824874._SY75_.jpg|60083394] - dreamy, sensual, surrealistic prose; an isolated setting in what I might call fable-time; a group of young women homogenized into a collective “we”; a feminist truth to speak - but I did not like it as much. This leads me to try to identify the differences. Serre’s characters are more active, Holm’s more passive. Holm’s prose dials up Serre’s abstract sensualism even higher, perhaps to the extent that it jumps the proverbial shark for me. There were parts of Serre’s book that even I as a middle aged male personally identified with, while there wasn’t really any aspect of Holm’s that I did. Holm’s book struck me as more dispiriting. Taken together, just not for me as much. ( )

Stuck in a hotel in the middle of nowhere, a group of nine young women work for the season. Once majestic, the Olympic Hotel is now an empty shell, perched in the mountains above the small village of Strega. Everyday is the same routine, the same gestures. Everyday the girls wait for guests who never come. One evening, guests arrive to celebrate the solstice and one of the girls disappears.

The atmosphere of Strega is very unique, almost claustrophobic. The reader shares the daily life of the young women, witnessing the work they do everyday, seemingly without any purpose as no guest ever comes . The days are calm, and peaceful, and the girls just enjoy each other’s company. Until something very dark happens. The reader never knows exactly what happened to the missing girl, but clues are left along the way.

Strega is a very slow novel. Johanne Lykke Holm takes her time to establish her background story, weaving a tale with gothic elements. I loved the slow pace of the story. It is a slow ride where you take the time to contemplate the landscapes. It is strange. Very strange. Full of esoteric elements. Certainly a deep read that stays with you afterwards, still wondering what exactly happened. ( )

Originally published in Sweden in 2020, Johanne Lykke Holm’s gently gothic novel Strega makes its US debut on November 15. The plot is both sparse and intense: Nine young women arrive at the Hotel Olympic, ostensibly to serve as seasonal maids. Yet despite the long list of chores set by the three female managers, no guests arrive, and tables are set for people who never come. Intrinsically bound together, the women share dreams, sensations, and the impending feeling of darkness coalescing around them. Our window into this world, Rafaela, lives in a waking reverie, watching her hands complete actions as her mind wanders. When the hotel finally receives guests on the night of a local festival, unnerving truths unveil themselves, and in the chaos, one of the women disappears.

Holm’s style is gaunt, inscrutable, and deeply remote, despite the first person narration. The book is devised in a very literary fashion, extremely descriptive but ultimately enigmatic, forcing you to observe the character’s inner reflections from afar. The focus of the prose is sensory, with constant mention of taste, scent, the physical consciousness of touch. Holm thrusts you straight into the bones of the story, and finishes just as abruptly, leaving the reader reeling. Reading this novel feels like sinking into a hypnotic dream, brimming with sensory images and dark suggestions.

I listened to Milana Zilnik’s Notturni (Dreaming of Chopin) I & II while reading this book, and found that her classical crossover albums greatly enhanced the atmosphere and experience. ( )