My Men

A spellbinding, darkly poetic literary novel that plunges us into the inner life of America’s first female serial killer

Seventeen-year-old Brynhild is in a fever – she can’t quiet the screaming world inside her. Following the brutal end of an intense affair, she flees Norway for America to begin a new life as Bella. She tries to settle first with her sister and then with a husband, but the restless pulse of her desire and fear won’t let her keep still. As Bella seeks refuge in a series of men, her yearning for an all-consuming love ruptures into violence. In this breathtaking novel, Victoria Kielland writes her way into the tumultuous inner life of Brynhild Storset, the Norwegian woman who would become Belle Gunness – one of America’s most notorious female serial killers. Written in prose of wild, visceral beauty, My Men dares to imagine one woman’s capacity for ecstatic love and gruesome cruelty.