Lost
Hanna lost her brother Erik to the mountains in Therese Bohman’s newest novel, Mount Verity. The ominous blotch on the book’s cover art—a black thumbprint on a cloudy landscape—hints at a tragic story. Bohman’s efficient tale framed by Swedish lore and artistic resilience delivers on its dark promise. A few hours before Easter in 1989, Erik and his friends go to Mount Verity, a mysterious place rumored to swallow you whole if, while in its cave, you lie when questioned. His friends return the next morning without him. Their stories do not align and their memories of the night are each blurred in different ways. Unfortunately, none of their inconsistencies suggest foul play to local police. For weeks, search parties turn up no results. Before long, Hanna and her family are left with an unfillable void and an incredible loss.
Hanna’s friend Marcus was the only person who didn’t treat her like the girl whose brother disappeared. They were best friends before, but after Erik went missing, Marcus helped her build a place of solace. They took over a guest cabin in the garden of his family’s house and created a second home for themselves. Marcus held a quiet confidence that Hanna appreciated throughout their relationship from its platonic into its romantic stage. It wasn’t until they neared graduating high school that Marcus’s assuredness gave Hanna pause. He was leaving their hometown as soon as he could to do important things (she learned later he went on to study theology and write articles about God and the revelation of the apocalypse in Nordic folktales). Of herself, Hanna was not so sure. She was disheartened to think someone else close to her was effectively disappearing from her life. She would learn to nurse those two wounds for much of her adult life.
Found
It takes three attempts for Hanna to get into art school and begin the life she longed for but would somewhat regret. When she began formally practicing her craft, she lived within the colorless lines of her drawings, using the medium to make ultimately toothless commentary on pop culture of the time through the enduring lens of the Renaissance. It wasn’t until her advisor called her out on her masterful yet tepid work and directed her toward painting that Hanna started creating authentic art. She fundamentally overturned her approach.
The shift in Hanna’s medium and philosophy, and her obsession with both, sent her off and running. She became the successful artist that she’d dreamed of as a child, reading comics with her brother. It was through her art she found herself and reconnected with Erik. Art gave her an outlet to fully experience and process the grief his disappearance had bestowed upon her.
Hanna’s transition to paint reinvigorated her. She had a new passion for creation—for living. Her days turned from mundane to vital and her outlook on life changed from boredom to obsession. She was reintroduced to colors in a way that taught her something new about herself and therefore new about existence. Hanna’s advisor said all artists have wounds and need healing. Painting became the balm for the open wound that was her missing brother Erik. The mountainsides she painted told the stories of pain and loss. She recreated the cave in her work and ultimately retold her own stories. Her goal, perhaps unconsciously, was to undo the rumors, the folklore, the outright lies that accumulated over the years about what happened to her brother. It was the most authentic she’d ever been and it gained her the success she feared would elude her.
Told
Bohman’s art journalist background shines through in this novel. The intersection of visual art and storytelling makes Hanna a quietly compelling character. The reader’s first vision of her connecting with art is her reading Donald Duck comics before her brother goes missing. This may be why she draws pop culture figures when she’s older. Her connection with storytelling begins just as young in her community children’s church group.
Marcus and Hanna enjoy hearing the parables of the Bible and from that point forward, she processes the world through the stories she tells herself. Hanna considers what could have really happened that night on Mount Verity, had her brother ever been in love and was it the cause of his disappearance, and even what her parents are doing to cope with the major loss they’ve experienced. Because she distances herself from the identity of being sister to the boy who disappeared, she doesn’t engage with many people and instead imagines relationships.
Not until she’s older and painting do Hanna’s stories take a more direct turn toward what brings her the most pain. She paints her version of the mountain. Erik deserved more than whatever the rumors were and because stories are a way to keep people and ideas alive, she uses her painting as a means to bring him back to life. Hanna thinks about how her family would be different if they talked about Erik—about hoping for his return or accepting his probable death. She seems stuck in this perpetual state of unknowing, so she makes up stories about what could be to account for what isn’t and captures them on her canvas.
Hanna doesn’t mince many of the words in her 209-page book. It’s such a tight text, there’s no room for excess. The only story left to dive into more is that of her relationship with her young son. Separated from the boy’s father and making a reasonable living as an artist, she is very clinical when talking about her son despite at one point thinking she was unable to have children. Bohman doesn’t mention whether Hanna fears parenting after witnessing what her parents experienced, but perhaps it’s evidence of an acceptance that regardless, the world turns on and there’s no point staying stuck in the past like a moment captured in a painting of the mountains that may consume you.
FICTION
Mount Verity
By Therese Bohman
Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
Other Press
Published April 7, 2026
