Neo-Victorian Voices: Burial Rites, Hannah Kent (2013)

After blogging about Finnish Iida Turpeinen’s Beasts of the Sea last month, I’m sticking with the Nordic theme for the next book I’m writing about as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series, reviewing novels written in the twenty-first century but set in the nineteenth. Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites (2013) tells the bleak story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir, the last woman to be executed for murder in Iceland. 

It’s 1829 and Agnes has already been sentenced to death when the book begins. Now, due to Iceland’s lack of prison, as bureaucracy around her sentence continues (what weapon should be used to cut off her head and who should wield it?), she’s sent to live with a family of farmers who are less than pleased to have a convicted killer in their mix.

Through Agnes’s interactions with her reluctant keepers and with an assistant reverend sent to prepare her for death, we gradually learn how the murders unfolded. There’s no twist here—we know what will happen to Agnes from the book’s first pages, and we stay with her until the bitter end.

The novel is atmospheric, well-researched, and relentlessly realistic. This is historical fiction dripping with bodily fluids that reminds us how hard life was in the past, rather than a sanitized period drama. We don’t get many sweeping descriptions of the Icelandic landscape. Instead, the setting comes to life through the characters’ interactions with it. How do they survive or die in a world of snow and darkness? And how do they navigate the darkness, and potentially the familiar light, inside each other?

I’d recommend Burial Rites to lovers of realistic historical fiction that packs an emotional punch. But if you’re looking for a pick-me-up, this probably isn’t your next read. 

Let me know what novel I should review next as part of my Neo-Victorian Voices series—here, on Facebook, on Instagram, or by tweeting @SVictorianist. Want monthly updates from my blog? Sign up to my email newsletter here.