Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Mary weites: It seems like our list of fiction selections is quite low. Here is another suggestion that was my favorite book this winter. Per Petterson is a Norwegian author who won awards for Out Stealing Horses. It is a short book, with sparse words creating the scenes and the characters. The loneliness of Norwegian winters bring back reminiscences of winters in the UP. Beautiful writing which is memorable and haunting. Read reviews on Amazon. It will be released in paperback April 29th and can be pre-ordered now. Mary Strohl
Please add this review from Amazon.com:
From
The New Yorker
In this quiet but compelling novel, Trond Sander, a widower nearing seventy,
moves to a bare house in remote eastern Norway, seeking the life of quiet
contemplation that he has always longed for. A chance encounter with a
neighborthe brother, as it happens, of his childhood friend Joncauses him to
ruminate on the summer of 1948, the last he spent with his adored father, who
abandoned the family soon afterward. Trond’s recollections center on a single
afternoon, when he and Jon set out to take some horses from a nearby farm; what
began as an exhilarating adventure ended abruptly and traumatically in an act of
unexpected cruelty. Petterson’s spare and deliberate prose has astonishing
force, and the narrative gains further power from the artful interplay of
Trond’s childhood and adult perspectives. Loss is conveyed with all the
intensity of a boy’s perception, but acquires new resonance in the brooding
consciousness of the older man.