My Men

A New York Times Best Crime Novel of 2023A Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book of 2023A CrimeReads Best Historical Fiction and International Crime Novel of 2023A Best Book of 2023 – Chicago Review of Books and Marie ClaireAn eerily lyrical tour de force . . . [A] horrific, sustained portrait of a traumatized human soul.
—Tom Nolan, The Wall Street JournalKielland plumbs Belle’s inner life through jaggedly rhythmic prose, where what should be obvious is sometimes opaque and what’s often shrouded — female rage — takes center stage.
—Sarah Weinman, The New York TimesThis fascinating, off-kilter novel about a female serial killer is an unexpectedly thrilling read.”—Karl Ove Knausgård, author of My Struggle and The Morning StarBased on the true story of Norwegian maid turned Midwestern farmwife Belle Gunness, the first female serial killer in American history. My Men is a fictional account of one broken woman’s descent into inescapable madness.
Among thousands of other Norwegian immigrants seeking freedom, Brynhild Størset emigrated to the American Upper Midwest in the late nineteenth century, changing her name and her life. As Bella, later Belle Gunness, she came in search of not only fortune and true faith but, most of all, love.
From Victoria Kielland, a rising star of Norwegian literature, comes My Men, a literary reimagining of the harrowing true story of Belle Gunness, who slowly but irreversibly turned to senseless murder for release from her pain, becoming America’s first known female serial killer. In pursuit of her American Dream, Kielland’s Belle grows increasingly alienated, ruthless, and perversely compelling.
Raw, visceral, and altogether hypnotic, My Men is a brutal yet radically empathetic glimpse into the world of a woman consumed by desire.