Salka Valka

A novel of Iceland -- a queer, repellant sort of Iceland at that. The story of a prostitute and her child, victim of her passions, her selfishness, and her ill-fame -- and of their attempt to find a place for themselves in a new community which is unfriendly, critical, unforgiving. Chiefly the story of the daughter -- her obsessions with and revulsions from sex, and her relations with two men, the one by morbid fascination and hate and love of a queer sort -- the other by appeal to her better nature. Glimpses of effects of industrial unrest in a distant part of the world. A difficult style -- not easy reading. (Kirkus review)