"You don't know what air is, and yet you breathe.... You don't know what a heart is, yet your own heart beats steadily in your chest, day and night, day and night, day and night." Written for his newly born daughter, Karl Ove Knausgaard's third volume in the Four Seasons series exhibits the same stunning honesty that characterized his magnum opus My Struggle. But here Knausgaard must also tell his daughter the story of what happened while her mother was pregnant, and explain why he now has to attend appointments with child services. In order to keep his daughter safe, he must tell a terrible story, one which unfolds with acute psychological suspense over the course of a single day.

"Knausgaard's assets are on full display, including his precise writing style and his unerring sense of detail.... It is the shortest book he has ever written, but it is all muscle, a generous slice of a thoughtful, ruminative life." —Washington Post