Benny And Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti

Katarina Mazetti was at a funeral, wondering about how a wife would feel if she was burying a husband she wasn't really grieving, when she got the idea for Benny & Shrimp.

Plot Summary: This book is set in Sweden, where Desiree, a librarian, has just buried her husband. He was a very practical man, who had even picked out his own plain and simple headstone. Desiree spends at least an hour there on her lunch breaks -- mostly because she's trying to work up to the grief level she feels is appropriate for a new widow.

The neighboring grave is a very ornate affair, planted with tons of flowers, and tended by Benny. Benny, like his parents (who are commemorated by the gravestone), is a dairy farmer in the countryside.

Under ordinary circumstances Desiree and Benny would never have met. Their lives are complete opposites, other than this connection in the graveyard. Still, after avoiding eye contact for weeks at the graves, they begin a relationship. Unfortunately for them, this a more realistic story than your general chick lit book where boy meets girl and everything goes smoothly. Benny and "Shrimp", as he calls her, have to deal with the real logistics of their lives and the tension in Sweden between the intelligentsia and the small family farmers.

My Reaction: I admit, from the cover I was convinced that this book would be like a thousand other books I'd read before. It makes a huge difference that Katarina Mazetti lived on a Swedish dairy farm for 20 years before writing it. (She is clear in the author interview at the back that this was not an autobiographical book, but the details of life on the farm appear to come through personal experience.)

I'm also not used to reading Swedish novels. This book was originally published in Swedish in 1998, but not translated into English until 2008. That's very different than a book written by someone who just went to visit Sweden and set a novel in the tourist locales there. The author's voice was very different, too. Much more mater-of-fact even, in some places, about sex in ways that was more shocking than the more detailed, flowery imagery I've read in American romance novels.

As someone who didn't get married until my 30s, which included a big change from my single city life to living in a small West Texas town (and talking about having chickens in the backyard), I very much identified with the tension that Desiree and Benny face in trying to blend two established lives into one.

The storyline didn't flow in a way that I expected, but the issues Katarina discussed and the unique voice had me thinking about this book long after I put it down.

Bottom Line: I really enjoyed Benny & Shrimp, primarily because it was nothing like what I expected.

(Thank you to FSB Associates for my review copy of this book.)