Flickers like film threaded through a projector, shifting between dark and light, past and present, autobiography and fiction ... gracefully exquisite, sharply funny, and richly poignant reminiscences ... Ullmann’s homage to family, art, beauty, and love is resplendently vital, and enchantingly evocative.
For readers anticipating a book-length gossip-column blind item — or a score-settling peek into the intimate lives of famous people — Unquiet may be disappointing ... The rueful humor... is typical of Ullmann’s prose, which is plain, succinct and declarative, with currents of intensity flowing beneath the placid surface. The effect, in Thilo Reinhard’s graceful English translation, is almost Didionesque, as the willed, witty detachment of the narrator’s voice at once conceals and emphasizes the rawness of her emotions ... Unquiet is, well, quieter [than Ullmann’s previous novel, The Cold Song], and also more chaotic, finding drama and pathos in its own search for an adequate form and turning its failures into something fascinating and rich. In the process, it creates — or perhaps discovers — two characters who seem stranger, sadder and more real than the actress and the filmmaker we might have thought we knew...
[Ullmann's] approach pays tribute to her parents while not allowing their acclaim to overshadow her experiences. It is a spare, beautiful portrait of an unusual childhood with unique people ... One of Unquiet’s great strengths is Ullmann’s seamless weaving of time periods, transcripts from the audio recordings, and musings about memory, family, and fame. There’s an internal rhythm to the prose which is rarely stymied by sentimentality or preciousness, and yet the deep well of emotion just below the surface is palpable throughout ... even without knowing her parents were world-renowned, Unquiet would resonate powerfully because many of the issues it explores are common to parent-child relationships ... Ullmann shows that it is difficult but possible to carve out one’s own identity while honoring and loving one’s mother and father, no matter how hard they make it to do so. It’s a high-wire act few writers have performed with such grace.
