My Friend Natalia: A Novel [Kietas viršelis]

"One of Finland's most dynamic novelists bursts onto the American literary scene with this erotic story of an ambitious therapist's sessions with an unforgettable patient. Award-winning author Laura Lindstedt makes her Anais Nin-like US debut with this mesmerizing tale of one woman's potent affliction: Natalia cannot stop thinking about sex. Narrated by her unnamed, ungendered therapist, who leaps at the chance to employ their most experimental methods, My Friend Natalia offers a gripping examination of the power dynamics always present but rarely ever spoken about in therapy. "Something flared within me," the therapist notes. "And it wasn't exclusively sympathy. .?. .? It was more like a sudden experience of harmony, wholly inappropriate given the circumstances." By combining philosophy and literature, repressed childhood memories and explicitly unrepressed erotic experiences, their sessions quickly shed all inhibitions. As tension percolates, the therapist can't shake the question: What does Natalia really want? In prose charged with sharp banter and double entendres, My Friend Natalia takes a deconstructive approach to the self-help narratives of our times and announces Laura Lindstedt as a rare and unflinching literary talent"--

An American debut by the award-winning author of Oneiron follows the experiences of an unnamed, ungendered therapist who uses a controversial experimental method to help a client work through repressed memories and overcome a disabling sex addiction.

Natalia cannot stop thinking about sex.My Friend NataliaIt is clear from the moment Natalia barges into her new therapist’s office that she has motives beyond simply fixing her sex life. She is quick to mention that the same exact painting hanging on the therapist’s wall—an abstract piece titled Ear-Mouth—once hung in her grandmother’s living room. This comment deeply unsettles the therapist, as does the large alarm clock that Natalia brings with her, intent on timing the sessions herself. And the tape recorder.At first, Natalia seems to play along with the rules of therapy. She partakes in the therapist’s pain-displacement exercises, word games, and even produces a few anatomical illustrations. She muses on the art of pornography, and boldly examines seminal figures like Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, about whom she poses the question, “Did Jean-Paul consider Simone a woman at all? Or was she nothing but a pencil sharpener?” By combining philosophy and literature, repressed childhood memories and explicitly unrepressed erotic experiences, the sessions quickly shed all inhibitions. Still, the therapist can’t help but wonder: What does Natalia really want My Friend Natalia

One of Finland’s most dynamic novelists bursts onto the American literary scene with this erotic story of an ambitious therapist’s sessions with an unforgettable patient.