“Awkward” is an overused word that has, over time, come to connote an almost endearing shyness. Its actual meanings, though—difficult, ungainly, abnormal—perfectly describe Mathea Martinsen, the narrator of Norwegian writer Kjersti A. Skomsvold’s debut novel, The Faster I Walk, The Smaller I Am. The book, out next week from Dalkey Archive, takes up Mathea’s life after the death of her husband. With no one to talk to, she wears a watch in the hopes that someone will ask her the time, talks to the news anchors on TV and repeatedly calls the operator asking for her own number. It’s a painfully funny exploration of loneliness, written in a lean [...]