August 2025
Dear Reader,
When I was a little girl, my great-grandmother would always save the children’s section of the Sunday morning newspaper for me. It wasn’t just puzzles and games, there were also ads for penpals. Children and teenagers from all over Iceland would write things like, ‘Hi, my name is Eva and I’d love to have penpals aged…’ I had a few myself. Those letter exchanges never lasted long or became especially close, but I know people who wrote to their penpals for years, forming deep friendships.
It was a popular pastime in the 1980s. Schools even encouraged children to find foreign penpals to practise their languages, though most of us actually wrote to other Icelandic kids from different towns and villages, children we might never meet, never even put a face to.
Now, as a mother of three, I often think about those innocent connections. One of my children is at the age where he spends a lot of time in online games, and I’ve lost count of the meetings and emails about internet safety. We all know that strangers lurk on chatrooms, pretending to be someone they’re not. Online anonymity is so easy that we must stay constantly vigilant. But what about back then? Were there no bad actors hiding behind penpal ads? I can’t remember anyone ever warning us that penpals might not be who they said they were, but it’s that ‘what if’ that was one of the sparks for Home Before Dark.
Another inspiration for this novel comes from my own family history. My paternal grandmother’s surname is Róbertsdóttir, daughter of Róbert, yet she has never seen or heard from Róbert in her life. His brief role in her story began and ended long before she was born. Robert was an American soldier stationed in Iceland during the Second World War. He left the country and never returned. Years later, my aunt tried to trace him, but by then he had already passed away. My grandmother herself was never interested.
Icelandic patronymics fascinate me, especially when the father is absent. Many Icelanders still carry the names of men who played no role in their lives, while the mothers – who carried the burdens and made the sacrifices – remain unacknowledged. It feels unfair, but that’s simply how it was. Today, Iceland is far more liberal, even considered one of the most progressive nations in the world, but it wasn’t always so. For a long time, children who bore their mother’s surname were frowned upon.
My great-grandmother was far from the only woman to have had a relationship with a soldier during those years. It was, in fact, quite common. Young Icelandic women found the soldiers exciting, well-dressed, polite and so different from the local farm boys. But soon society grew anxious. The newspapers referred to it as ástandið or ‘the situation’ – a perceived threat to Icelandic culture and identity. The government responded harshly: emergency laws were passed, raising the age of majority from sixteen to twenty so young women could be monitored for longer. A special ‘youth supervision’ programme was created, essentially a spying operation, keeping detailed records of the women’s private lives and relationships. Those deemed at risk were even sent to an institution at Kleppjárnsreykir in Borgarfjörður. Conditions there were grim. Girls as young as fourteen lived in cramped rooms, made to work, subjected to physical examinations, intelligence tests, and even tests to determine whether they were still virgins.
However, the deeper wounds lasted much longer. These women carried a lifelong stigma, branded as promiscuous, a mark that brought shame not only to them but to their families and descendants.
My novel is not about the occupation itself or ástandið, I feel like that’s not my story to tell, but it does look at the echoes left behind. The way collective traumas can send shockwaves through generations, leaving traces still felt decades later.
I feel incredibly fortunate that my novel has been chosen as a Goldsboro Books pick. As an author, it’s always a joy when a story that’s been living inside you for so long finds its way to readers, and Home Before Dark has been my favourite book to write, to date. The special edition is truly beautiful, and I do hope you will enjoy reading it just as much as I loved writing this story.
Enjoy!
Eva Björg Ægisdóttir
Iceland
