Translated from Norwegian, this book consists of five parts, each called `Fall'. Stella's mother, Edith, insists on standing up to give birth, so Stella `falls down through Edith's birth canal, falls into the world, falls into the splendid old midwife's splendid hands -- but with an unearthly scream that bursts the young nurse's eardrum'. Thirty-five years later (and 130 pages earlier), pregnant with her third child, Stella falls from a high roof to her death -- perhaps pushed off by her husband in the course of one of their curious games. Various narrators consider how it happened or tell stories, some of quite obscure relevance; chiefly, Stella's adolescent daughter, the detective investigating the case, who `can tell by the smell of a man whether he has committed a crime', and a senile friend Stella formerly nursed, whose character may be gauged from his words: `I suppose I do have one joy; there is pleasure for me in music. ... Music tells me there are beings beyond this miserable existence who are willing to speak to us. Unborn children, perhaps, who were meant to have a body, a voice, a life, but who came to nothing, aborted or snuffed out at the moment of conception ...'
In no way could this book dispel the general supposition of Scandinavian gloom.