Per Nilsson Quotes

Heart’s Delight opens with a 16-year-old boy poised over a desk. He is alone in the room, going through the left over items of a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Ann-Kathrin. As he systematically destroys each object, he replays a scene from their relationship that relates to it.

By the end of this moving story, he has gotten rid of everything; he’s torn up the bus pass from the station where they met, blown the unused condoms into balloons and set them adrift from his balcony, and dropped the pot of lemon balm tea she gave him from the balcony, too.

“Now he sits alone in his room, a sixteen-year-old boy, waiting for her to call. Wishing for her to tell him it was real. It was as perfect as he imagined. But the phone sits silently.”

“As he falls for a stranger on a bus, wins her affection, makes love with her, parts from her for the summer and returns to discover she has another beau, the intensity of the protagonist’s emotions will be strongly felt.”

Along the way, the book carefully traces their tumultuous relationship, from their first hopeful meeting, to the boy’s loneliness when his family was away and she never called, to her betrayal of him with a rival. It is revealing the innermost thoughts of a teenage boy at a vulnerable time in his life.

“He throws the pot of lemon balm she gave him over the edge of the balcony. No phone call. He tosses the black Frisbee and the Swiss Army knife over too. Still the phone stays silent.”

“Before Heart’s Delight, I was a boy, he thinks. Before Heart’s Delight, I was a child When he first saw Ann-Katrin on the bus, he was mesmerized, captivated, consumed. But that was before.”

“It is telling about a young boy. It tells you about his first love and his first heart breaking. One day he was late for school. He enters the bus in hurry and in about some stops later a girl enters the bus. She has red hair and a unique perfume. And it’s the most beautiful thing the boy ever saw.”

“Every week the same day he takes the bus later than usual, so he can talk to the girl. And he does. And they start this relationship which is based on feelings from both sides. Or this is what the boy believes. When he turns back from a trip in USA, he figures out that his girlfriend was sleeping with another guy. And his heart breaks.”

“The boy continues to wait, systematically destroying all of the objects from their short-lived relationship. He rips up the bus pass from their first meeting. The phone is quiet.”

“As he plays their relationship over in his mind like a movie, he wonders: What if his heart’s delight doesn’t call? Will life be worth living then? ”

Over the course of the novel, the youth methodically destroys each piece of memorabilia from his relationship with Ann-Katrin, whom he thinks of as Heart’s Delight (it is also another name for the lemon balm plant she grows in her bedroom).