Twice in a Lifetime

Each of Sverrisson’s stories offers an intricate study in the precariousness of life, the frailty of every fleeting opportunity. Characters are scarred by simple, careless actions. Lives turn on the smallest events: a child steals cash from his father for a pretend-money game and unwittingly throws his brother’s entire life off balance; a man has a one-night stand with a married woman and only realises the consequences years later; an overbearing girlfriend sends her cynical boyfriend a letter that stops him in his tracks. Yet amid the anonymity of urban life, the random accidents and mistaken identities that make up Sverrisson’s stories, there can also be found an abiding faith in the unexpected gifts that chance throws up: synchronicities, coincidences, moments in time seen from new perspectives that offer fresh secrets, and, occasionally, even a second chance.