Book Review: ‘Your Absence Is Darkness,’ by Jon Kalman Stefansson

The structure of “Your Absence Is Darkness” is best described as a series of recursions: The stories build and break apart, yield to other stories, emerge again later, sometimes at length, sometimes in fragments, flashbacks, single words. The effect is kaleidoscopic; as the narrative turns, pieces shift, stories merge, themes dilate and contract. I fantasized about an edition printed in color, each narrative strand a hue of its own, the shuttling, shuffling syntax fractal in its effect.

Or perhaps the better comparison would be musical: a round, voices entering at different intervals, bringing elements of both melody and harmony. The text quotes itself constantly, tying “centuries and generations together into one unbroken whole,” in a way that feels fruitless to quote. A late paragraph of exquisite beauty made almost no sense when I tried to include it here because it builds on over 400 pages that must be read first.

Music also appears in more direct ways in the novel. Regular mention is made of specific songs and artists — from Icelandic classics and Édith Piaf to Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse — all compiled in a “Death’s Playlist” at the back of the book, and, I’ve since learned, in a Spotify playlist. I don’t know what kind of effect listening to it would have had while reading, but my suspicion is that Stefansson’s unique voice, his stunning imagery and his expansive, sympathetic score of human experience are all music enough.

Many artists have made use of amnesia for narrative purposes, whether it’s biographical rediscovery in Christopher Nolan’s film “Memento” or the more philosophical exploration of self in Tom McCarthy’s novel “Remainder.” From early on, however, Stefansson makes it clear that he is after something different. In linking remembering to re-creation, he uses amnesia to bring author and reader together as common travelers into the unknown. For what are we upon opening a new book if not amnesiac? We must have our new lives created for us. Either it must be explicitly explained, or we must piece together clues, must eavesdrop. We too appear in the churchyard without memory, and meet the world anew.