Two people on an island can manage, even when things get bad. But three is worse.

Tove Jansson

What mattered most to Tove Jansson, she explained in her eighties, was work and love, a sentiment she echoes in this tender and original novel.

Fair Play portrays a love between two older women, a writer, and an artist, as they work side-by-side in their Helsinki studios, travel together, and share summers on a remote island. In the generosity and respect they show each other and the many small shifts they make to accommodate each other’s creativity, we are shown a relationship that is both heartening and truly progressive.

Fair Play on the publisher Sort of Books’ website.

The book was first published in Swedish as Rent spel in 1989 and was translated into English in 2007.