Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

 

Two men have been brutally murdered, bludgeoned and stabbed to death and the house set afire.  One is the owner of the house, Natan Ketilsson, and the other a visitor.  Three people were charged with the murder.  One was a neighbor and the other two were Ketilsson's maids.  Agnes Magusdottir was one of these women and was sentenced to death, to be beheaded.

Until the execution, which wouldn't happen for months, there was a need to house Agnes somewhere.  The home of a government official, Jon Jonsson, was chosen as the place of her imprisonment.  She was to live in the house with Jon's family, his wife and two daughters and to work as a servant until the time of her death.  

Agnes has the right to religious instruction and comfort.  She picks a young assistant reverant named Toti.  Reverant Toti is unsure if he is qualified to take on such a task but as the weeks and then months go by, Agnes shares her life with him.  Her life had been hard, growing up in poverty and abandoned by her mother when she was six.  After that, she was handed from farm to farm as a servant, never finding any caring.

She and Natan had been having an affair when he asks her to leave her most recent employment and come to his farm as the housekeeper.  When she gets to the isolated place, she learns that there is a sixteen year old woman already there and that Natan is having an affair with her as well.  He is also involved with a married woman with whom he has a child.  Agnes's place is unreliable and Natan is in constant battle with a neighbor who wants to marry the other woman.  He is the man who is involved in the murder and strikes the first blows.  

Hannah Kent is an Australian author and this is her debut novel.  Kent was an exchange student to Iceland when she was seventeen and she learned about Agnes's story then.  The reader learns about rural Icelandic life and culture as Agnes' story is slowly revealed.  Although she is a prisoner, she forms relationships with those around her.  In particular, she has ties with the young reverend and the mother on the farm by the time she is executed.  This book is recommended for historical and literary fiction readers.