Mostly Murders

The creation of a serial killer is described in a strangely poetic fashion in My Men, written in Norwegian by Victoria Kielland and translated into English by Damion Searls.

When the young Brynhilde is forsaken by her lover, she embarks on a journey from her homeland of Norway to America, hoping to find a new life of love and happiness there. She shreds the name Brynhilde, attempting to reinvent herself as new woman using the name Belle instead. But America is not the answer to her prayers. A negging feeling of otherness, and a consuming desire for passion and love, slowly gnaws at her heart and erodes her peace of mind. She attempts to reinvent herself as a righteous married woman, but the darkness inside her never recedes, and the love she craves is easily corrupted and lost.

My Men is a fictional account of the life of Brynhilde Belle Gunness, a Norwegian maid who ended up becoming a serial killer in America, murdering at least 14 different men. The focus on the book is not, however, on the murders Belle committed, but on the thoughts and feelings she might have had in the months and years before she ended up becoming a murderer. It is a story of a woman so consumed by her passions and fears that any voice of reason she may have initially had, is completely drowned out by her own madness and desire to kill.

My Men is not a book for readers looking for dry facts or gory descruptions of the killings of Belle Gunness. It is a book for readers who want a lyrical and disturbin fictional insight into the kind of throughts and feelings that might drive a person to become a murderer.

Historical fiction – Mystery – Thriller