Johan B. Mjønes - Selected Title Author
We are happy to present our selected title author Johan B. Mjønes. He has written Spuria. The book is one of NORLA’s Selected Titles of the spring 2025.
What is your book about?
When 87-year-old Kristin’s husband dies, she decides to search for the child she gave up for adoption as a young girl, only 16 years old.
After a long illness, his passing comes as a relief. But because he died during the night, rigor mortis has already set in. The caregivers place a damp cloth over his eyes to be able to shut his eyelids. Seeing this, Kristin is thrust back to the moment she gave birth to a baby boy, blindfolded with a towel over her eyes. She couldn’t look; it would have been far too difficult to give him away if she had gotten a look at him.
Kristin’s parents had refused to accept her relationship with her teenage sweetheart, so she was sent away to a so-called “confinement home” to give birth in secrecy.
Now, she asks her grandson, Birger, for help, and they start searching for the child together.
For Kristin, the search is both a journey through papers and documents in the present and a painful reckoning with the past. Why was she forced to give the child away?
Spuria is a story about secrets, love, and grief—and about the tyranny of gossip.
What inspired you to write this book?
An image.
I stumbled across an interview with an elderly nurse, who spoke about “spuria children” and “spuria mothers”. I had never heard the term “spuria” (which means false or illegitimate) before, and my interest was immediately piqued.
The nurse went on to explain that when women gave birth but had no means to keep their babies, a towel or cloth was placed over their eyes to prevent them from seeing the child.
Reading this, something resonated with me deeply. Years ago, while working in a nursing home, I sometimes assisted in preparing the deceased. I suddenly recalled an image of a dead man I was working on. I envisioned him with a cloth placed over his eyes to close them, and that image fused with the image of a woman giving birth, also blindfolded.
Birth and death.
That became the opening scene.
And in that moment, I knew what my book would be about—and exactly how I would write it.
Read more
See full presentation of the book here
Read more about the author here
See all NORLA’s Selected Titles for the spring 2025 here
