Elita

by Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum

An American literary take on the Nordic noir genre

Unfolding during the moody Pacific Northwest winter of 1951, we follow Bernadette Baston, scholar of child development and language acquisition, as she travels to a penitentiary on the remote island Elita in the Puget Sound to consult on a curious case: two guards have discovered an animal-like adolescent girl living alone in the cold woods beyond the prison’s walls. There are few answers, but many people who know more than they are saying. According to official reports, the girl, dubbed Atalanta, does not speak. Is her silence protecting someone? The prison warden, court-appointed guardian, and police detective embroil Bernadette in resolving a secret that the tight-knit island community has long held, and her investment in the girl’s case soon becomes more personal than professional. As a mother, wife, and woman bound by mid-twentieth-century expectations, Bernadette strategizes to retain the fragile control she has over her own freedom, identity, and future, which becomes inextricably tied to solving Atalanta’s case.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Historical Mystery, Adult Fiction, Audiobook

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2025

About the author

Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum is the author of the novel Elita (2025) and three collections of short stories: What We Do with the Wreckage (2018), Swimming with Strangers (2008), and This Life She's Chosen (2005). She has been the recipient of a PEN/O. Henry Prize and fellowships from Sewanee, MacDowell, and the Jack Straw Writers Program. Her short fiction has appeared in the journals The Sun, Ploughshares, Conjunctions, One Story, Prairie Schooner, McSweeney's, and The American Scholar, among others. She teaches in Seattle.

Reviews

[em · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book almost seemed like it was written just for me. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest and studied Linguistics, with a focus on Child Language Acquisition. From the very start I was hooked, Bernadette was a complex and very human character to lead this story. I loved her relationship with her daughter and her commitment to her work, despite societal pressures. I was under the impression that this book would focus on the lost child, Atalanta, but I’m glad she wasn’t the sole focus simply because Lunstrum constructed such a beautiful story with so many moving parts.

The writing was delicate and beautiful, with a special focus on the impact and importance of language as a tool for communication. I absolutely adored every single moment of reading, this was a slow burn but it was plotted with precision and care. Every interaction was necessary and every side character added so much to the story itself. While Bernadette is hell bent on solving the mystery behind Atalanta, she also rediscovers herself and this was an incredibly moving process to read. There were so many passages and moments in this book that were nothing short of astonishing to read. A perfect book about being and choosing what to fight for, one I’m sure I’ll remember for a long time.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for kindly providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. #Elita #NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

[jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the gloomy city of Seattle in the 1950s, the novel opens with a high profile mystery case involving the sudden appearance of an undomesticated girl Atalanta who allegedly attacks two prison guards and is described to be as wild as a rabid dog. Having been discovered on the remote island of Elita, Atalanta’s disheveled appearance as well as her severely underdeveloped language and cognitive development draws a copious amount of public attention from the small tight knit island community, making her a subject of speculation and judgment. Due to the public nature of the case, several interested parties become involved to investigate the origin and figure out a plan of rehabilitation for the mystery girl. The narrator Bernadette, a passionate and maternal child language specialist and professor, is hired onto the case to provide consultation and assistance. While the investigation unfolds, Bernadette’s domestic life is shaken up as she struggles to draw a clear balance between her keen interest in the case and caring for her precocious four year old daughter Willie as a single mother.

Right off the bat, I was quite impressed with the storytelling and the ample character building which is typically pretty lacking in most mysteries/thrillers. Bernadette makes for quite an intriguing and effective narrator - she is sharp yet vulnerable, intuitively strategic and fiercely independent in the face of many tragedies she suffered in her early teens. I especially enjoy the social commentary on the limitations women like Bernadette encounter while working in a male dominant field like academia, and the guilt that comes with having ambitions and wanting to make a life of her own beyond being a wife and mother. The “women belong in the kitchen” sentiment is still quite pervasive given the time period of the novel, which makes me appreciate Bernadette even more as she remains steadfast and refuses to be defined by her circumstances or the labels other people confine her to. Her relationship with her daughter Willie is absolutely adorable to read about.

On the mystery front, I did find the pacing to be a bit slow especially towards the later half of the novel. It felt like the main plot line of the mystery girl Atlanta took a backseat as Bernadette’s personal life was disrupted by the sudden introduction of a new character (who I will not reveal due to spoilers). Frankly, my curiosity about the case waned as the domestic drama was dialing up and the investigation was lead astray by a bunch of red herrings. It just became too much of a drag for me to actively follow.
Apart from Bernadette, I also enjoyed the relationships she established with other characters, especially the local islander Signe who was very maternal towards Bernadette.

Overall this is quite an atmospheric read with strong characterization and solid suspense buildup. The storyline is very original as well, I would recommend this to anyone who is looking for a historical mystery with a remote island setting.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of the ARC. All opinions are my own and not paid for.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. This novel seems unsure what it’s trying to be, and fails at everything: the plot isn’t strong enough for a mystery or suspense novel (in actuality it’s a slow-paced domestic drama; my attempt to read it on a plane was a bust), the protagonist not compelling enough for a character study, and it feels too modern for historical fiction. There’s a good sense of place, and the descriptive and reflective passages are probably the best part, but good pull-quotes do not a good novel make.

Nominally this is a mystery involving a non-verbal child, discovered on a prison island in the Puget Sound (Elita is based on the real-life McNeil Island) in 1951. But this element feels disconnected from the actual life of the protagonist, Bernadette, an adjunct professor whose real story is about the struggles and joys of a single mother whose life is upended by the unexpected return of her estranged husband. Bernadette’s academic interests are never really clear, and her involvement with the feral girl is minimal, to the point that the feral child story and the domestic drama feel like two separate books. Up until the last 60 pages there’s precious little plot, which was too little too late for me, and the coincidences allowing Bernadette to discover the truth felt awfully convenient for what’s trying to be a literary rather than a genre novel.

Meanwhile Bernadette is a frustrating character: passive when it would behoove her to stand up for herself, cagey or confrontational when she should be building rapport. And while she does face sexism, I never quite believed the 1950s setting. Bernadette’s working as a professor is not treated as a big deal, and too many little details rang false, from her casual reference to Montessori schools (the Montessori method did exist then, but didn’t take off in the U.S. till the 60s) to her concern about Child Protective Services (which was definitely not policing middle-class white women’s level of supervision of their children in 1951).

In the end, the writing is good but the storytelling was bad, and I just never much cared about these characters. It may be only 249 pages long, but they’re big, slow pages, and it just seemed too uncertain what it wanted to be to pull off any of the options well.

[Debbie Jeske · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've just ignored my chores to read the last several chapters of the book, and am glad I did. Throughout Elita, I loved the use of language. The author, who I actually happen to know, is gifted indeed in the way she selects and uses words, and her writing felt a step above. The story itself, is actually two stories, and I was fond of the main character, Bernadette, right away. She was strong, often in ways even she didn't realize. By the middle of the book, I had so many questions, and was afraid both of the storylines might not wrap up satisfactorily, but no worries, they definitely did. Elita has been called 'Nordic noir-esque,' which I hadn't heard of before, but I agree. But set in the PNW where I live, many of the locations were familiar, either by name or sense, and I also really enjoyed that.

[Teague Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was fine.

Big pages, small text, long paragraphs, and in-line chapter headers made this annoying to read, and feel like it took forever to get through.

I was hoping for something a little more sinister in the plot. Not to say the story was bad, but it felt like two different stories--one of Bernadette and her family, and a separate story of the girl she's trying to help. Though the two stories are thematically related, they feel like two distinct books shoved into a single binding.

[Ilya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid mystery, interesting character development, great pacing - this book was a pleasant surprise. There are two subplots at play here and I was invested into the main mystery more than our protagonist's family drama. 4/5

[Nancy N. Sutherland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Erudite & fascinating story

Great to have a story authentically placed in the Pacific NW. The protagonist is a woman with beliefs that are far ahead of het time. well worth reading.

[BookTrib.com]

An American literary take on nordic noir??? Give it to me please!

[angela · Rating 1 out of 5]

repetitive and overwrought

[Danielle Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute beauty of a book. A tense mystery, a fraught story of family. A meditation on motherhood, identity, language, grief, lineage. I savored every page.

[Anna Van Someren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sorry if you came for the feral girl, she’s not here. Precisely ZERO feral girl in the woods scenes.

Ok how are you going to offer up a feral girl story and not give us the girl in the woods? There’s no handmade slingshot, there’s no berry foraging, no fingernail claws, no cuddling with the wolf mother, there’s not even a DEN

[Lacey Ballard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set around Puget Sound 🥰 excellent story (love a feral child), and was not irritated by audiobook reader’s voice, which is rare

[Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved loved loved this book so much. It was our book club pick this month. It was recommended by an author to our book club. After reading it our book club is perplexed why it isn’t on all the big celebrity book lists. It is a fantastic slow burn crime thriller set in the 1950’s Pacific Northwest with a twist you won’t see coming. The main character is a former WW2 nurse turned academic and wife/mother. It had Lessons In Chemistry vibes with big themes about parenthood, motherhood, marriage and what it means to be a woman. This was a five star read and one of the best books I have read all year. Put it on your TBR list and share it with your friends.

[Regan Giangrande · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️

Ever have a book synopsis inadequately prepare you for the story you get? I was expecting the story of a feral island child, Atalanta. What I got was a Nancy Drew amateur sleuth mystery wrapped in an homage to single working mothers.

The focus is on Bernadette, a mother forced to care for herself and her young daughter when her husband leaves her. She is linked to Atalanta through her scholarly expertise. But as we watch Bernadette struggle to solve Atalanta's case, we also see her struggle to balance her desire to be a good mother with her desire for career success. The 1950s setting is a reminder that for an ambitious woman trying to make a career in a male dominated field like academia, especially while balancing the roles of wife and mother, there are always a different set of rules and expectations.

The parallel abandonment themes were well done. Society often fails those who are most vulnerable. But sometimes the vulnerable surprise us with their strength, resilience, and tenacity. Sometimes you find your words or your freedom and it is enough.

[Evelin]

This book was very well written until it succumbed to a trope of the sweet kind old woman who turns out to be a crazy old evil hag at the end. WTF. What a cop out. It was lazy and disappointing. I loved it right up until the end when it sunk into the mire of the author unsure of how to realistically figure out how to end the book.

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book never quite engaged me. The theme of women's lack of professional respect during the 1950s was a bit overworked. I did admire the author's poetic descriptions of the sky, the sea., and the natural environment, however I expected to find more emphasis on solving an actual mystery.

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I set this one aside unfinished. It’s got promise, it’s close to good, but off somehow. To be fair, part of it is the narrator and their mispronunciation of Seattle area names that bugged me

[Christina Klock · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What do you do when your love for another person outpaces reason? When the fear that is the flip side of that love is irrational at times, and overwhelming? When the boundaries set so carefully around your heart and time and trajectory dissolve? Parenthood shatters a person, fragments her, splits and bursts her into something different – something bigger than she was before, but also something less controlled.”

And so debut novelist Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum introduces our protagonist, Bernadette. Taking place in 1951, Bernadette is a highly educated professor who faces the restrictions, misogyny, and condescension of male academia; a world that makes few allowances for women, especially a married woman with a child.

After a sudden change in her circumstances, Bernadette moves from Chicago to Seattle with her toddler daughter and secures a job as an adjunct lecturer. Given her specialty in early language acquisition, Bernadette gets pulled into a case involving an apparent ‘feral child’ found off the coast of Seattle on an island called Elita. As she becomes emersed in solving the mystery of the wild child’s background, Bernadette herself begins to loosen the chains of polite society as she contemplates what it means to be free.

There were aspects of this novel that were excellent– passages of prose that were luminous, pacing that pulled me along precipitately, and an engaging plot. Consider this bit of writing, where Bernadette is pregnant and has put her career on hold. It is cold and icy in Chicago, so she gets her exercise walking the halls of the university, where not only is she known for her work there, but where her husband is also a professor.

“The male students and professors gave her a wide berth when they spilled out of the classrooms on the hour and spotted her there, maneuvering her swollen body down the corridors. She was obscene to them, she realized. She was confusing. …. And what did they think of the change in her form? As a woman, she was already primarily animal to such men, and the belly completed the transformation from human to beast…. In a way, she found the men’s discomfort funny. There was power in being the object of their complicated anxieties. What did they think? That she would give birth right there in front of them? That she might open her blouse and begin, like Hera, spurting milk from her breasts? “Don’t worry, boys, she wanted to say to them. This is how galaxies are made.””

I was expecting a feminist novel (it delivered) but I wasn’t expecting such a strong mystery/thriller vibe. I confess I read way past my bedtime to see how the novel would end.
I thought I may have my first 5* new release of 2025, and a debut novel at that!

However, Bernadette seemed to slip in and out of character, especially in the second half of the novel. She made decisions that were puzzling and became less of a person and more of a vehicle to make certain points about female stenotypes vs feminism that seemed a bit forced.
Nevertheless, a great novel. I can’t wait to see what Ms. Lunstrum will write next.

[Kate Vane · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is winter 1951 in the Pacific Northwest. Bernadette Paston is an academic, specialising in child development and language acquisition. She lives alone with her young daughter Willie (Wilhelmina) after her husband left without explanation. She lets her employer believe she is a widow because if they knew she was married she would probably lose her job.

She is offered the opportunity to consult on a fascinating and disturbing case. On the nearby island of Elita, abandoned apart from housing a prison, an adolescent girl has been found living wild in the woods. She cannot speak, shows no signs of being socialised and is described by the prison guards who find her as like an animal.

Elita is a complex novel, bringing together many strands and themes, and sometimes feels like several books in one. There is an understated literary novel about motherhood and childhood and Bernadette’s observations of how Willie develops as a person, contrasted with her impressions of Atalanta and her broader research. As a mother and an academic, she often finds a conflict between her intellect and her emotional and embodied drives.

Then there is the story of female imprisonment and pressure to conform, exemplified, in different ways, by Atalanta and Bernadette herself, as well as some of the secondary characters. Finally there is the mystery surrounding Atalanta’s history and how she came to be abandoned on the island.

The relationship between Bernadette and Willie is where Elita is strongest, in my view. I didn’t feel the shift from realism to melodrama in the theme of women’s confinement was quite convincing. There is a beautifully rendered sense of Bernadette’s mounting paranoia, and an almost hypnotic quality to the writing, but it seems out of kilter.

Bernadette’s role is supposedly to work directly with Atalanta but we see very little of that in Elita. The focus of the story is much more on Bernadette investigating how she came to be found, along with a local police officer. Bernadette’s research trips to Elita and the neighbouring island, Adela, give a strong sense of place, and of the paradox of island life – where you are both isolated from the world and known intimately by your community. However it’s not clear why she takes on this role, or why the police and social worker let her.

As a crime fiction reader I was wondering why several lines of investigation weren’t being pursued and why the police had a fairly lackadaisical approach to what would have been a high-profile case. Once we learn the truth about Atalanta, it still left me with questions about Atalanta’s behaviour and the role of the prison and its personnel.

I did really like the quality of the writing in Elita and the more literary, introspective parts were, for me, the most effective. There’s much to think about – how we develop a sense of self, how we learn to understand each other, and how power permeates every institution – from the prison to the family.
*
Copy from NetGalley

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a quiet, contemplative, little nugget of a novel that is musings about society wrapped up as "an American literary take on the Nordic noir." (To be fair, I have not read any of those, so maybe that's a hallmark of the style.) Through the mystery of a girl who has shown up in the wilderness on a prison island in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1950s, we meet Bernadette, an academic who focuses on early childhood development and thus a perfect avenue for questions about what it means to be human and how society shapes us.

While I could see some readers wanting the mystery to be more at the forefront, being part of Bernadette's life and days as she navigates raising a young daughter on her own, deciding how and when to trust people when she has been let down before, and ruminating on humanity's big questions was a pitch-perfect experience for me. I already see myself coming back and reading this again and again because I felt so connected to Bernadette. This may feel like a random or weird comparison, but it made me feel kind of the same way that Waitress does: a story about a woman choosing herself, in the end. I'm really glad I picked this one up.

CW: animal death, death of a parent, suicide, abortion, adoption, forced imprisonment, child abuse, emotional abuse

[Desirae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elita is a beautiful book in every way, a cerebral yet compassionate novel that moves through the intricacies of motherhood within Pacific Northwest island culture in 1951. Lunstrum's sentences are breathtaking, small details quilted into the narrative with an expert needle. The author's eye for the little moment can stun you with virtuosity, and the detective side of the story builds to a prodigious finale rivaling any neo-Nordic literature.

An abandoned child is discovered and put into an island prison in Puget Sound, and Bernadette Baston, an ex-nurse in wartime France is called in as a professor to consult about the child's language. Meanwhile, she is dealing with her own husband's abandonment as she tries to raise her daughter Willie by herself; the tension when he returns is taut and intense and gripping. Elita has the extended richness of a long New Yorker story, mesmerizing prose that is bliss to read. It is an intelligent riff on the mystery that goes deep.

I cannot recommend this enough.

[Cam Torrens · Rating 5 out of 5]

My sister gifted me this book set in the same Puget Sound where I was raised. I'd never heard of the author. Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrom's talent leapt off the first page, and I just hung on for the literary ride.

Lunstrom's voice sang like Ariel Lawhon's introspective protagonist in "The Frozen River." Whereas Lawhon allowed her female character to model men to break 18th-century paradigms, Lunstrom's story was more poignant and realistic as her post-WWII character, Bernadette Baston, could only rely on herself to validate her identities as a professional, a wife, and--most importantly--a mother.

Ironically, the case she takes on--the discovery of a feral child on a remote island dominated by a penitentiary--involves flawed professionals and a missing mother, leaving Bernadette the dilemma of how to pursue her investigation while honoring her role as a wife.

Help me spread the word--five stars all around for this breakout novel!

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had to keep “this is 1951” in mind as I read so everything would stay situated! What a fascinating/frustrating voyage through women’s struggles: Bernadette’s efforts (battles?) to hold on to her meaningful work with language acquisition and child development and to help a feral girl come into society, as well as to be a single mother of a four-year-old.

Faced with pop-up bollards on every avenue through all these aspects of her life, Bernadette persists in spite of the roadblocks men (one unexpectedly arriving mid-story!) throw up and women hide behind. I loved Bernadette’s voice throughout, even though she does not tell her story herself, her voice especially when she says or feels about anything about her daughter or the girl, called Atalanta.

Moving and inspiring, the story has not faded from my mind. I’d love a sequel from Lunstrum!

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this is my first five-star read of the year! no, I was wrong: All the Colors of the Dark.

Bernadette and her daughter were doing so well together on their own. How women lived and were treated in the 50s, with men having all the power, made me realize why men want that back and we can't let that happen!

The story is set in the Pacific Northwest and the descriptions made me want to fly out there and explore again.

A wild girl is found on an island that only contains a prison and they don't know where she came from, how she ended up there, and what to do with her. Bernadette is tasked with teaching her to speak. She isn't quite hired for the job but as a lecturer at the university, she can use it as research. Nora, the social worker involved, behaves in a shameful way towards Bernadette. I never quite figured out what her angle was. the police officer involved, Detective Nordquist, is one of the good guys.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came for beautiful, reflective prose I've come to expect in Lunstrum's writing, and I was particularly intrigued by the promise of "Pacific Northwest Noir", which felt absolutely right for late winter reading. I was not expecting - but really needed, in this new Trump era - the sharp bursts of feminist rage from Bernadette, an academic and single mother in the 1950s, a time when it was rare for a woman to be either of those things. The mystery of the child on Elita provided an engaging plot, but what will stick with me the most are the more introspective moments as Bernadette battles with societal expectations and what she knows to be her own drive towards an independent, fulfilling life with her child.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this, and I was most of the way through it before I really became aware that parts of it didn't make a whole lot of sense. I don't really understand why Bernadette was so adamant about not being a teacher, when she did actually teach college students. I didn't really understand the power struggle between her and Nina. The writing about the various facets of motherhood and the struggle of a woman who wants to be a mother and a scholar - particularly in the 1950s - was quite wonderful, and the relationship between Bernadette and her husband was odd but I appreciated that it wasn't formulaic. It was extremely atmospheric - for someone who is always too warm, the multiple references to stuffy rooms or people sweating under their clothes haunts me almost more than the girl abandoned in the woods (not really). In retrospect, 'Atalanta' seems like an underused device for the rest of the story.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

After a few days before writing a review I raised my rating to 5 stars. This novel just had so much and stayed with me. Mainly it is about Bernadette, a student and teacher of child development, from elsewhere but working in the Seattle area in around 1951. "Elita" is a fictional name for the nearby but remote McNeil Island, home of a federal penitentiary. The story centers also on a young female found living alone and 'wild' on the island.
So much to this novel, but the extent it examines life for an educated, independent woman and life for a 'broken' (to choose a label, right or wrong) child, along with how society treats both; and mental health in general; is striking and so very impressive.
In the end this is so simply and strongly presented it just wowed me. Would not maybe have been drawn to this but I have a familial connection to the island.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking

As someone who grew up in the Puget Sound area and as an avid reader of mysteries, I found this book so beautiful—much more than your usual example of the genre. It represents the stifling effects of the fifties on women, the history of the interment (in a subplot), and the amazing landscape that is the Pacific Northwest. It is also a meditation on the relationship between mothers and daughters. That means it does not have the pacing of a traditional mystery, but it’s worth it even if you are someone who usually craves that kind of read.

[Ellen B. Cowgill · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great mystery/ thriller. The idea of a young woman found on an island that houses a men's prison is mystery. Did she get dropped off or did she get raised by the wolves? She does growl and act like a wolf. The main character, Bernadette Baston lives in a period of time (1950's) where women have little rights and are generally not taken seriously. It is interesting how secrets in this town get pealed off layer by layer.

[Lucy Keough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to rate this a 5 star and it was almost that. My hesitation was the overuse (in my opinion) of too many comparative references — the sky was like ….; the snow was like ….. the writing was very skillful and insightful but some in places excessively. I appreciate the struggle between career and motherhood but frankly there were times when I completely lost empathy for the protagonist. Still and all a very good read.