Sally Magnusson

Faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis, Helen Firth makes the impulsive decision to return to Orkney after forty years to make peace with her past. Under the wintering solstice sun, she reconnects with Thorfinn Coffin, who helps her address the real reason she has chosen to return to the islands.

As Helen draws closer to death, and ever closer to Thorfinn, Hel in turn finds herself intrigued by Helen. She, too, has a past to confront and a lesson to learn: that perhaps who she thinks she is isn’t who she’s really meant to be.

REVIEWS

“One of the most imaginative and ambitious books I have read all year. … Towards the end of the book, Thorfinn wonders: “What if there were to be a meeting of worlds in this thin island of ours? What if myth could be made manifest? It would look like this, wouldn’t it?” Personally, I would have put that quote on the book’s cover. Because the answer, when you have finished it, is a resounding ‘Yes.’” (David Robinson, The Scotsman)

“Magnusson is superb at evoking a landscape rich in history and prehistory, although the novel’s greatest strength is her feminist interpretation of Norse mythology in a story that centres equally on Hel and Helen, both of whom are daughters wounded by “fathers whom they still, in the last winter of their own lives, struggled to forgive“. (Irish Times)

“Sally Magnusson’s opus on love, death and change is heartrending … Magnusson has grand ambitions here, mashing together a tragic romance, a god’s exploration of what it means to be human and a cosmic scheme to outwit the mighty Odin, but by interlacing her plotlines with threads of healing, reconciliation and taking control of one’s destiny she’s fashioned it into a powerful emotional journey. …  Captivatingly written.” (The Herald)

“Steeped in folklore, home to stone circles, selkies and sea sorcerers, [Orkney] provides the backdrop for a stirring novel about finding love in the darkest hour. Magical in every sense.” (Saga Magazine)

“Magnusson has a light touch, imbuing darkness with light and myth with mirth, her characters nuanced and contradictory, making them authentically human (even when they’re otherworldly). So The Shapeshifter’s daughter blends modern day Helen Firth, returning to Orkney after 40 years and a terminal diagnosis, and the myth of Hel.” (Janet Christie, The Scotsman Magazine)

“Fascinating” (Radio Times)

READER RESPONSES

‘There is something very profound about this story, partly due to its contents, partly due to Magnusson’s ability to write, and partly due to the strongly evoked Orkney setting – bleak, and beautiful with its ‘holy silences‘.

 ‘I could not put it down and was sorry when it ended . . . Thoroughly recommended for those who like myth retellings, atmospheric, character-driven stories and excellent writing.’ 

‘This may be a book about Gods and monsters but it is also one of the most universal human stories I have ever read, and one that I know I will revisit.’ 

‘An absorbing novel about Viking myths in an ancient landscape. . .  This is a lovely story about finding peace as well as love, even in one’s last days. This book doesn’t so much fill a gap in the market as a gaping hole in modern society’s soul.’

SALLY MAGNUSSON ON THE SHAPESHIFTER’S DAUGHTER

I grew up with the Norse myths through the tales of my Icelandic father, Magnus. He would stride around, pipe in mouth, regaling me with the exploits of the gods of Asgard and bequeathing a lifelong fascination with Thor, Odin, Loki and the rest of the gang. These days the gods are more often to be found brandishing their virility in video games or Hollywood films. But where were – where ARE – the women? 

 In The Shapeshifter’s Daughter I’ve reclaimed the most interesting Norse figure of them all: Hel, the girl who was thrown into the underworld by Odin to rule over death itself; Hel of the extraordinary face and terrifying reputation. Look at her one way and the beauty takes your breath away, but the other side of her face is so deformed by ageing that she has been likened (of course) to a corpse herself.  In all the myths, it is by that appearance –  the shock of unsightly ageing beside youthful loveliness – that we are invited to define her. In my telling it’s how she has also come to define herself. 

So while I wanted this book to be a reclaiming of a woman in the Norse myths, I also wanted to dramatise a woman reclaiming her identity amid the messiness and horror of her body. And in modern Orkney, where the book is set, it’s another woman who shows Hel the way: Helen Firth, her human counterpart in what the Norse called Midgard, or middle earth. Helen looks on the face of Hel and, in seeing something different, enables the goddess to find a way of valuing herself. Equally, in discovering who she actually is, Hel is able to help Helen through her own, all too human, dying. 

I wanted to write a novel about death (something that every society fears, as the myths about Hel sharply remind us), which is actually about the affirmation of life..  What solitary Helen learns, not least when she allows herself to open up to love, is the concept of a “good” death, wrapped in life and people.

Beyond and around the characters, gods and humans, is Orkney itself, an island that still proclaims its long Viking history in its stones, its runic writing, its rituals and its place-names. Winter in Orkney is as dark as in any northern clime, but into that darkness comes the light of the winter solstice, creeping into the five-thousand-year-old burial cairn of Maeshowe when the sun stands still and offering people down the ages a transformational hopefulness that affects Helen and Hel alike. The austere winter light of Orkney, which reminds me so piercingly of my own second homeland of Iceland, is something very special.