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    Brightly Shining
    Brightly Shining
    Brightly Shining
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    Brightly Shining

    By Ingvild Rishøi and Caroline Waight

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    Beautifully told with humor and tenderness, a Norwegian Christmas tale of sisterhood, financial hardship, and far-off dreams, acclaimed by reviewers and beloved by readers across Europe, where it has been a major bestseller

    Christmas is just around the corner, and Ronja and Melissa’s dreamer of a father is out of work again. When ten-year-old Ronja hears about a job at a Christmas tree stand near where the family lives in central Oslo, she thinks it might be the stroke of luck they all need. Soon, the fridge fills with food, and their father returns home with money in his pocket and a smile on his face. But one evening he disappears into the night under the pretense of buying Christmas gifts—and the daughters know he has gone to his favorite local pub, Stargate, and they come to terms with the fact that he may lose his wonderful new job.

    Melissa decides to take his place at the Christmas tree stand, working before and after school in the December afternoon dark, and brings along Ronja, who quickly charms all the middle-class customers. On rare breaks the sisters dream of a brighter place of kindness and plenty, and find help from some of those around them—but both understand that their family structure is a precarious one, and that they are going to need luck and strength to transcend their circumstances. 

    Skillfully told, evoking the delight, misunderstandings, and innocence of a child’s voice, Brightly Shining is small in stature but with an outsize impact on the reader, and has all the markings of a magical modern classic.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGrove Press
    Release dateNov 19, 2024
    ISBN9780802163509
    Author

    Ingvild Rishøi

    Ingvild Rishøi was born and raised in Oslo. She has published several collections of stories in Norway, and her debut novel, originally titled Stargate, was published in Norway in 2021. It is published or forthcoming in twenty territories and is being adapted for film. Rishøi is one of Norway’s most revered literary voices.

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      Book preview

      Brightly Shining - Ingvild Rishøi

      Cover of Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishøi

      Translated from the Norwegian by Caroline Waight

      Grove Press

      New York

      Copyright © 2021 by Ingvild Rishøi

      English translation © 2024 by Caroline Waight

      Published by agreement with Paloma Agency.

      Jacket art and design by Nick Misani

      All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of such without the permission of the publisher is prohibited. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or anthology, should send inquiries to Grove Atlantic, 154 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011 or [email protected].

      Any use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. The author and publisher reserve all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

      Originally published as Stargate. En julefortelling in 2021 by Gyldendal in Norway.

      Published simultaneously in Canada

      Printed in the United States of America

      First Grove Atlantic hardcover edition: November 2024

      This translation has been published with the financial support of NORLA.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available for this title.

      ISBN 978-0-8021-6349-3

      eISBN 978-0-8021-6350-9

      Grove Press

      an imprint of Grove Atlantic

      154 West 14th Street

      New York, NY 10011

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      groveatlantic.com

      Sometimes I think about Tøyen. It’s then I see Tøyen quite clearly.

      People carrying shopping bags out of the supermarket and pushing buggies through the snow, running to school with bags thumping, and the caretaker standing by the gate at break time, smoking. Then the snow melts, and the Christmas trees lie brown outside the blocks of flats, and then the lawns turn green and full of dandelions, and so it goes on, people walking steadily and staggering and walking steadily again, babies being born and old folk dying, and at break time the caretaker leans against the pillar by the gate, blowing smoke towards the sky.

      It’s then he thinks of me. He understood it all, I see that now. He gazes up above the rooftops and remembers everything.

      Standing out here, are we? the caretaker said.

      He took up position at his pillar, taking a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. And I stood where I always stood, I answered as I always used to answer.

      Yes, I said.

      You know that’s not allowed? the caretaker said.

      I gave him the reply I’d learned from Dad.

      Rules are made to be broken.

      It was snowing a little. Behind us, someone was shouting eeny meeny miny moe! The caretaker stooped and lit his cigarette. Then we picked up our conversation.

      You know that’s not allowed? I said.

      Rules are made to be broken, the caretaker said. Did you give away all your food again?

      I nodded. The squirrel had already been, Tøyen’s only squirrel and its finest. It knew when break time was, and then it came. The caretaker held the cigarette between his lips and took his packed lunch out of his pocket. He opened the foil, split the börek in two, and passed me one still-steaming half. His wife was very good at wrapping.

      It’s the circle of life, the caretaker said. You give to the squirrel, I give to you.

      What’s the circle of life? I said.

      Philosophy, said the caretaker. Here I am a caretaker, you know. But in my home country I was a great thinker.

      He turned and blew the smoke away from me.

      That’s the good thing about being an immigrant, he said. You can always tell people what you were in your home country.

      But you’re pulling their legs? I said.

      Never, he said. Well, actually, in my home country I was one of the country’s greatest leg-­pullers. I won a competition. The National Leg-Pulling Championships.

      Gosh, I said.

      Anyway, he said. Have you seen that flyer over there?

      And he pointed with the cigarette between his fingers.

      Wanted: Christmas Tree Seller, it read. You Are: Conscientious. Responsible. Outdoorsy.

      It was taped to a lamppost. At the bottom were strips of paper with a telephone number.

      Might be of interest? the caretaker said.

      I don’t think ten-year-olds can get jobs, can they? I said.

      It’s not you I was thinking of, the caretaker said.

      He went up to the lamppost and tore off one of the strips, and came back and put it in my hand.

      Show that to your dad, he said.

      Snowflakes were melting around the bit of paper in my palm.

      And if he does apply for the job, tell him to say he knows Alfred, said the caretaker. He’s the one who delivers the Christmas trees for them.

      But is that true? I said.

      True enough, the caretaker said. I know Alfred, you know me, and your dad knows you. That’s the circle of life.

      I nodded.

      While we’re at it, said the caretaker, you might as well take the whole thing.

      And he went back over, picked off the tape, and rolled the flyer into a scroll.

      It’s not allowed, putting up flyers here, he said.

      But what if somebody else wants to apply for the job? I said.

      The caretaker tucked the scroll into my jacket pocket. Snowflakes were landing on his small woolly hat.

      Exactly, he said. You’re looking at a great thinker here.

      When I got home, Dad was sitting at the kitchen table. Looking up, he shielded his eyes with his hand.

      Is that the sun coming up? he said. Where are my sunglasses?

      He smiled, I smiled too. Then he stopped smiling.

      Come and sit here for a minute, he said.

      He rubbed his forehead. But I didn’t want him to start up. This is no way for kids to live, he says, tarmac and all this shit, and afterwards he says, but you’re not stupid, you two, nobody can say that, and you’ve had good times too, remember the tent that summer? Remember the cabin that winter? and I answer yes and no and yes, but I didn’t want him to start up again, so I unrolled the flyer and put it on the table.

      Christmas Tree Seller, said Dad.

      The flyer rolled up by itself. I rolled it flat again and held it down. He looked up.

      But a Christmas tree seller, he said. That’s a job for country bumpkins, Ronja.

      "But anything

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