This Should be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle is a book written in ‘staccato’ but with a mood that is distinctly ‘lamentoso’.

Short, detatched and seemingly unrelated sentences deliver the story of Dorte, a university student living alone and not going to classes. There’s a fair degree of commentary on apple trees, trains, insomnia, ex-boyfriends and her aunt (also named Dorte).

“After that the suitcase lived in my room. At one point it was a bedside table, the lamp threw a white cone of light on it all day long. I lay on the bed doing old crosswords with a biro. I didn’t have that many jobs to do, but I had to remember to turn my jeans inside out when I put them in the laundry bin.”

“They’d forgotten their picnic basket, it was sticking out from under the shrubs in the front garden. I discovered it on the Tuesday morning when I went over to catch the train. I’d tried some new eyeshadow, it was dusty green and supposed to go all the way up, only my eyelids weren’t the right shape. It was only a couple of minutes till the train was due…” Continue reading →