BOUDOIR

The useful part

A dreamy, secretive teenage girl named Teddý living on a farm in rural Iceland has a chance encounter with a visiting cartographer in 1962. When he discovers her gift for mathematics, she unexpectedly finds herself encouraged to pursue a college education. astronaut preparing for the moon mission, changes the course of her life again—this time after her graduation.

How it works

• We learn how she handles the emergency only later, through a conversation at a party between characters who don't reappear.
• As we watch Teddý strive to achieve her ambitions, Pálsdóttir gives us glimpses of Iceland's changing position in the world and the nascent women's liberation movement.
• Midway through Teddý's first, very formative airplane ride, the pilot of the small plane collapses.

What to take from it

Teddý remains in many ways opaque, even as she finally finds "the courage to plan something, she who appeared lost in the strange world her life had now become." The plan she hatches requires a double life, a great deal of lying, and bank fraud.

Details worth keeping

Another chance encounter, this time with a U.S.