Dustin Long - Icelander

As the author of Icelander seems to assume at least some knowledge of Magnus Valison’s The Memoirs of Emily Bean , I have seen fit to scatter a few explanatory footnotes wherever I felt that readers unfamiliar with that series might benefit from a bit of background elucidation. The names and biographies given in the table of Dramatis Personae that immediately follows this preface refer only to the fictionalized characters who appeared in that series and no libel is intended toward any of the real-life persons on whom they were originally based. For information regarding the disputed authorship of this novel, please see my afterword.

Emily Bean-Ymirson: That most extraordinary of women, whose diaries formed the basis of Magnus Valison’s celebrated series of books. An anthropologist by profession, a criminologist by birth, she—along with her irascible but dashing husband Jon Ymirson—repeatedly demonstrated extreme proficiency in both areas until her untimely demise in 1985. Her daughter, Our Heroine, is the central figure of Icelander .

Blaise Duplain: Former Inspector for the Quebec City police, Duplain moved to New Crúiskeen after leaving the force. There he met Emily Bean-Ymirson and managed to lend a professional hand on a few of her cases. She returned the favor by introducing him to Shirley MacGuffin, whom he subsequently wed.

Garm: Great-grandson of the Fenris Dachshund, Garm has been a devoted companion to Our Heroine since his puppyhood.

Gerd: Queen of the Vanatru, half-sister to Prescott [see below], and rival to Our Heroine. The Refurserkir are hers to command.

Hubert Jorgen: Rogue library-scientist. Though most consider his methods somewhat unorthodox, his work remains unparalleled in the field. His radical proposal for a replacement of the Dewey Decimal System in the late 1980s led to his being blacklisted from any jobs within the mainstream library-science community, but, undaunted, he has labored on. He remains one of the world’s foremost experts on ancient texts and forgeries, and at the time in which the novel is set he owned and operated the finest rare and antiquarian bookstore in upstate New Uruk.

Philip Leshio: Magnus Valison’s literary agent as well as Shirley MacGuffin’s. Now deceased.

Constance Lingus: A reporter who specializes in the exploits of the Bean-Ymirson clan.

Shirley MacGuffin: A continually aspiring author whose prose was matched in ambition only by its pretentiousness; best known in literary circles for her unauthorized radio adaptation of William Gaddis’s JR . She was first encountered by the Bean-Ymirsons while under suspicion of murder, but her knack for unwittingly involving herself with less-than-savory companions kept her a close fixture in their lives until her death in January of 2001.

Our Heroine: Former professor of Scandinavian Studies at New Crúiskeen University.

Prescott: Erstwhile ward of the Bean-Ymirsons and estranged husband of Our Heroine, Prescott was born in Vanaheim and raised there until the age of thirteen. He has since returned to lead his people in their time of greatest peril.

Surt: “Surt” was the sobriquet of Emily Bean’s criminal arch-nemesis. A notorious master of disguise, his true identity was never discovered, though the Bean-Ymirsons did manage to thwart his illicit activities on numerous occasions. While he was indisputably a villain in the small sense of the word, Surt was nonetheless a gentleman and lived by his own code of honor; the final volume of the Memoirs relates how he seemingly plunged to an icy death off the coast of Greenland rather than allow Our Heroine to be killed in an explosion that he had meant only to serve as a distraction.

Magnus Valison: One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Valison was born in Ghana on April 23, 1901, and descended from the original settlers of the Danish Gold Coast. He studied French and Scandinavian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Reykjavik and Paris, where he launched his remarkable literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator, though he wasn’t truly to find his muse until 1980, when he made the acquaintance of Emily Bean-Ymirson. Within a year he retired to her native township of New Crúiskeen in upstate New Uruk in order to study her more closely; he died there in early 2001, following close on the conclusion of this novel’s action. Among the major achievements of the first half of the Master’s career are Itallo (1955), the surprisingly touching story of a murderous pederast, and Ripe Leaf (1962), in which a grand mystery blooms from the footnotes of a plant-book posthumously published by the selfstyled Boswell of a respected herbologist. In the twelve years immediately following Emily Bean-Ymirson’s death, Valison occupied himself almost exclusively with what is generally regarded as his magnum opus, the twelve-volume novelization of her diaries, which he matter-of-factly titled The Memoirs of Emily Bean .

Wible & Pacheco: Self-styled “philosophical investigators,” they are best described in their own words: “We take on mundane cases such as murder and missing persons as a sideline to support our investigations into the larger Mysteries that others pass over in silence.”

Jon Ymirson: Adventurer/Anthropologist. He and his family are most noted for their discovery of Vanaheim and their subsequent study of its indigenous people. Though his traditional Icelandic sensibilities often came into conflict with the vivacity of his American wife, the resultant fiery quarrels never diminished his love for her. Subsequent to Emily’s death and the early onset of Alzheimer’s, he has given up his career and now placidly resides in New Crúiskeen.

Our Heroine woke to the sound of snowflakes, plaughtting against the window, perfect stellar dendrites that shattered as they crashed against the glass. Through a too-dry throat she groaned at them—some Adamic word of banishing—but it was fruitless, and the snow’s frigid spirit managed nonetheless to translate itself across the pane. From there it pressed on through blankets, quilts, and sheets to possess Our Heroine buried nude beneath. She shivered, let a yawn well through her body, and as she stretched herself out among the farthest reaches of bed, she felt the acids built up in her limbs; she felt how far she could stretch without touching anything at all.

She had not been alone upon her alcoholic fall into sleep, though she found herself so now. Hubert Jorgen was not there. The quilts and comforters curled around her still smelled of him—clean and fleshy, like soap made from bacon fat—and his head had left a pillow-dent, but the body itself was lacking. She pulled one last whiff of him in through her nostrils, and then again, across the roof of her mouth, she sounded her barbaric yawn. Song of herself.

Sliding grudgingly from the bed, then, she registered the fact that it was not her own, and she wondered vaguely how she had wound up in it. And then, through the haze of hangover, she recalled.

She’d started drinking early yesterday, hitting Hrothgar’s Mead Hall as soon as it opened. Hubert had stumbled in around three o’clock.