SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT LONGING

NOGET DU IKKE VED OM LÆNGSEL – SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT LONGING

By Karen Strandbygaard

AT THIRTY-TWO, Maria’s life appears orderly, even assured. She is on the verge of a career as a chemist in the private sector, grounded in precision, logic, and measurable outcomes. Motherhood has never been part of her plans. But when she moves in with her partner, David, the question of a child arises—and with it, a quiet shift in the future she thought she knew.

THINGS DO NOT go according to plan. Maria does not become pregnant, and the couple ends up undergoing fertility treatment. However, nothing works. Their futile attempts to have a child quickly begin to crack their otherwise good relationship. Maria’s boundaries are shifting. The rational world Maria has built—carefully, deliberately—starts to come undone. Maria becomes obsessed with one goal: having a child. Everything else fades away, both her career and her love crumble as she struggles with her body and her dreams.

SOMETHING YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT LONGING is a psychological portrait of a woman who becomes a victim of her own longing, and a novel about how easily an ordinary life can be thrown off course.