Judgement Day (Dommedøgn) is a disaster novel about Berg, a little village on the west coast of Norway where the mountains tower over the village and the fjord stretches deep beneath them. A village whose continued existence has been secured all these years because of a factory which has now closed. A place where the rational and productive human being is flanked by a powerful and irrational nature which would increasingly have its own way. What will happen to them when the structures they have spent their entire lives building, fall?

We follow five characters: the prophetic and strange teenager Linn is sure that something bad is going to happen. She is tormented by bullies, but awaits a greater catastrophe. Her only friend in the world is Fiver, her rabbit, who she thinks is psychic. Ingrid is the mayor trying desperately to attract new businesses to the town with help from national reorganisation, but she is constantly exploited. Gard, a misanthropist and recently unemployed drug addict who does everything he can to disturb the standstill. Care nurse Cecilie who makes friends with an elderly patient and helps her to die, but becomes so disturbed by this act that she leaves the body where it is and observes the slow process of decay. Lars, a naïve and self-appointed inventor who is working with a machine that will bring new business to the disillusioned village, a machine which packs waste into squares.

All of them are trying to give meaning to an existence which seems to have lost it, but from the mountain and out over the fjord hangs a rock which constantly threatens to fall into the water.

‘Håland shows insight into the dynamics of the local community. She presents oblique reflections from both the town hall and pub with linguistic freshness. ... For those of us who fear or are fascinated by catastrophe, Dommedøgn is a somewhat erratic but entertaining literary supplement.’
KLASSEKAMPEN

‘Pulse racing: adrenaline pumps throughout this postmodern portrait that Kjersti Wøien Håland has painted of a village in a crisis. ... Kjesti Wøien Håland has a poetic streak that is all her own, and is without a doubt a literary talent in full development.’
DAG OG TID

‘Kjersti Wøien Håland has written an illustrious novel about a village on its deathbed.’
Nomination jury for the Young Critics’ Prize