What Kingdom

Fine GrÃ¥bøl’s narrator dreams of furniture flickering to life. A chair that greets you, shiny tiles that follow a peculiar grammar, or a bookshelf that can be thrown on like an apron. GrÃ¥bøl’s narrator is obsessed with the way items rise up out of their thingness, assuming personalities and private motives. She lives in a temporary psychiatric care unit for young people in Copenhagen, practicing daily routines that take on the urgency of survival (peeling a carrot, drinking prune juice, listening through thin walls). GrÃ¥bøl’s prose demands that you slow down, follow just a footstep behind as she charts a wisdom of her own.