Maiden Lane
Maiden Lane
Philip TeirA wise yet light-hearted story about slow-burning passion, about beginnings and endings, this novel is Marriage Story-meets-Normal People-meets-Knausgård.
When Richard meets the beautiful and slightly older Paula at a Christmas publishing party, his feelings are stirred, as if all the pieces of the puzzle of his life have finally fallen into place. A year passes and Richard finds himself increasingly drawn towards Paula, as their friendship gradually deepens through online messaging, chance meetings at publishing events and lunches, to – initially chaste – breakfasts over the papers at her apartment on Maiden Lane. She is the love of his life, and he hers.
But it is not just the pair who will build a life and home together; Richard’s two children from his marriage to Sonja come to stay with them every fortnight. And with them arise the inevitable fractures and differences in the new family constellation as existing and new habits and values collide. MAIDEN LANE is a novel that asks the question: ‘How do I want to live my life?’ and the challenges of living under the same roof.
‘In his writing the observant Teir explores the possibilities and impossibilities of love within and beyond the realms of bourgeois relationships…A touching, chaste love story.’
— Dagens Nyheter
‘In a tragic yet beautiful manner, Philip Teir’s new novel exposes the impossibility of paradise on earth…He writes tastefully and delicately about deeper feelings – never tackily or over the top.’
— Svenska Dagbladet
‘Philip Teir and Hjalmar Söderberg share the same tonality, without the former necessarily imitating the latter. Teir’s prose is subtle and immersive…It is appealing because it speaks of the realities surrounding
passion.’
— Gefle Dagblad
