Swell Life in Iceland with Kat Gordon

Submitted: 10th December 2025

Swell Life in Iceland with Kat Gordon

Kat Gordon, author of The Swell, a story about a storm and a rescue of a man who has been shipwrecked. The story also of a woman who finds a body 65 years later. The two stories may well swell to an ending of myth, mystery and more.

Location map of The Swell

The Swell Kat Gordon

Snaefellsnes trip

Location map of The Swell

My boyfriend and I moved to Reykjavik in the autumn of 2014. We had previously been on a wintry city break there in 2009 and were charmed by the city as it was in the run-up to Christmas. Think free ginger biscuits and mulled wine offered in the shops on Laugavegur, and the impromptu recital at Hallgrimskirkja cathedral ….

We loved the colours – the blues and reds and greens (and occasional pinks and oranges) of the corrugated iron houses, the low flashes of gold mid-afternoon when the sun broke through the clouds, the gunmetal of the North Atlantic as it lapped up against the harbour.

Location map of The Swell

That was a holiday though, and now we were living there, with rent to pay and new systems to figure out, all while I was trying to finish my second novel. That one was set mostly in the Wanjohi region of Kenya, and I remember vividly how I was trying to describe it – the feel of sun on skin, the smell of the flowers that grew out there, and the sounds of the animals at night – when the snow came. Every morning I would get up and look out at a blanket of white, then sit down and write about the opposite. Instead of monkeys and nightjars, I could hear the faint crunch and tinkle of the neighbourhood cats jumping onto our bathroom windowsill and shaking themselves dry. Instead of flowers, I could smell coffee and cinnamon. I’d always loved summer, but now I realised perhaps I loved winter even more.

Hallgrimskirkja

Location map of The Swell

I would write all morning and through lunchtime. Then I would go for a walk to the cathedral and back, stamping slightly to stop myself from falling over. It always seemed deserted and hushed, in all that snow, and a little unearthly.

Sundhollin pool

Location map of The Swell

Then I would go swimming at Sundhollin, our local pool – opened in 1937 – which is stark and imposing and also somehow cheerful. I would swim indoors, then go out onto the balcony and ease myself into the hot pots, as they call hot tubs in Iceland. It was always dark by the time I was in the hot pot, and often it would snow and the snow would settle on my head, while the rest of my body, from the neck down, throbbed with the heat.

Mokka

Location map of The Swell

Sometimes I would drop into the mid-century-time-warp of Mokka café afterwards. It has brown leather booths and deep red carpet and copper lighting. Once a woman and her mother sat next to me, and their interactions – so ordinary, and easy and ritualistic – made me miss my own mother back in London with a sharpness that was almost enjoyable. I missed her because I loved her and because I was living elsewhere, in a place I also loved.

Hallgrimskirkja

Location map of The Swell

It must have been a period of particularly strong solar flares that first Christmas we were out there. I say that as we were also treated to a regular show of the Aurora, even in the middle of downtown Reykjavik, the sky awash with colour and movement. It only added to the beauty and unreality of the place, and I understood more than ever how the landscape lent itself to mythology.

Freyja’s mountain from the book

Location map of The Swell

Eventually we moved back to London and I finished my novel and discovered I was pregnant. My agent wanted to know what I was going to write about next. The idea floated into my mind fully formed: I was going to write about motherhood, and a ship wrecked in a storm, and a protagonist trapped by snow up a mountain – about elementary forces. I chose to set it in Reykjavik and in Snæfellsnes, which gave me an excuse to visit that part of the country, and it was even more beautiful than I’d imagined. Even better, Snæfellsnes comes with its own mythology and saga, which I could weave through my story.

One of the inspirations for Sigga’s house

Location map of The Swell

The story both is and isn’t at all my experience out in Iceland. None of the events happened to me, but I have one of my characters walk along my route: up Grettisgata, where we lived (and where the character of Amma lives in my novel), and up Frakkastigur, and down Njalsgata. Similarly, I wrote her swimming at my pool and meeting her grandmother at Mokka. Another of my characters witnesses the Northern Lights and feels the same awe I did. It was bittersweet, writing about the place and not being there anymore, but I was glad to do it. Iceland is like nowhere else on earth, and I wanted to try to capture some of it for readers who haven’t been there, or for those who did and loved it. I hope I’ve succeeded.

Oh Kat, you have! A wonderful story and thank you so much for taking us on this very special trail!