The Cut Line

In the poetic English-language debut from Pihelgas, heroine Liine returns to her family farm to start over after ending an abusive relationship with Tarmo, whom she met 14 years earlier when he was her university professor. Back in rural Tsoriksoo from the city of Tartu, sometime in the near future with temperatures rising, she throws herself into improving the farmstead. She also becomes captivated by letters exchanged between her spinster great-aunt Elvi and a woman named Selma, who was the farm’s original proprietor, and who invited Elvi to live there with her before bequeathing the farm to her. The letters inspire Liine to imagine an alternative lifestyle for herself, especially as Tarmo pressures her to come back to him. Liine’s peace is intermittently disrupted by gunfire and explosions from nearby military training exercises, and she feels unsettled and vulnerable in the rural setting (“I need to run away from myself,” she reflects, recognizing that “being in the countryside turns you a little strange,” especially with the stultifying heat and unrelenting sun). As Liine yearns for independence, Pihelgas artfully traces her slow recovery from the bad relationship (“I breathe deeply, like a person who wants to be alive and dead at the same time, like someone who’s forgotten how to breathe and is now learning it again”). This one has much to savor. (Feb.)