My Friend Natalia

Laura Lindstedt

Natalia cannot stop thinking about sex. With this mesmerizing tale of one woman's potent affliction, award-winning Finnish writer Laura Lindstedt makes her American debut. Narrated by an unnamed, ungendered therapist who leaps at the chance to employ their most experimental methods, My Friend Natalia offers a gripping examination of the power dynamics always present but rarely ever spoken about in therapy. "Something flared within me," the therapist notes, "and it wasn't merely sympathy, the emotion I feel for most of my clients. It was more like a sudden experience of harmony, wholly inappropriate given the circumstances." It is clear from the moment Natalia barges into her new therapist's office that she has motives beyond simply fixing her sex life. She is quick to mention that the same exact painting hanging on the therapist's wall-an abstract piece titled Ear-Mouth-once hung in...