The Cut Line

"The Cut Line is a book about a woman. It is a book about a house. It is a book about a season. But more than anything, The Cut Line is a book about the ways relationships-romantic, familial, and worldly-can smother us, defining who we are before we ever have a say. It is a book about the knife of letting go. The greatest strength of Carolina Pihelgas's writing is the complexity it finds in simplicity. Pihelgas perfectly weaves together the threads of a woman rebuilding her life. Much has been written of the pain of men who are left, but The Cut Line emphasizes the echoing hollow of the other side. Pihelgas expresses Liine's loneliness, hope, and insight in sparing narration in the vein of Kathryn Bromwich and Oksana Vasyakina. Drawing together geopolitics, environmentalism, and personal recovery, The Cut Line is a colloquial but tender reverse-gothic portrayal of how a woman becomes herself anew in the wake of gendered violence." World Literature Today

"Carolina Pihelgas' second novel, The Cut Line, revolves around the inner life of a young woman who has recently ended an abusive, toxic relationship. The Cut Line is a book about boundaries-personal and natural, spatial and temporal. It is fascinating to see how these boundaries shift and merge." -Estonian Literary Magazine

"In the poetic English-language debut from Pihelgas, heroine Liine returns to her family farm to start over after ending an abusive relationship. As Liine yearns for independence, Pihelgas artfully traces her slow recovery from the bad relationship. This one has much to savor." -Publishers Weekly

"Carolina Pihelgas delves deep, peers to the very bottom, is bold and confident, and never stops halfway." -Piret Põldver, literary critic

"In less than one hundred pages, Carolina Pihelgas creates a depth that would perhaps not be possible without her poetic language, upon which she builds her rendering of the human soul. With this extraordinary little book, the poet undoubtedly reinforces her position as one of Estonia's greatest prose writers today." -Estonian Literary Magazine

"The first book translated into English written by Estonian poet, author, and editor Carolina Pihelgas, The Cut Line is a compact story about Liine, a woman who has just left a toxic relationship after 14 years. As Liine goes through an emotional transformation, the landscape around her shifts in this novel about where to draw the line and how to maintain that line once it's drawn." -Electric Literature, 15 Translated Novels You Should Read This Winter and Spring

"Raw and deeply human... an honest portrayal of a woman learning, imperfectly and bravely, how to live on her own terms." -Underrated Reads

"The Cut Line is the perfect book for readers of contemporary literary fiction who enjoy writers like Otessa Moshfegh, Olga Tokarczuk, or Elif Batufman, and who pursue literature that is simple and succinct." -Ultramarine Literary Review