Nikolaj moves to a newly constructed house in a suburb in one of the counties surrounding Oslo in the early 1970s. His father is one of the architects who planned the area, and is full of dreams about the social opportunities the new affordable housing will mean for families in the area. As it turns out, most of the families who move in stick to a rigid routine of conformity and normality – their children wear the same thing, cut their hair the same way, […]
Three people tell a story. Who is telling the truth?
David has lost his memory. A news paper notice appears, asking people whether they know him and encouraging friends and acquaintances to write to him, to help him restore his memories. In this book, we get to read the letters of three of the people who write to him, as well as read about their current lives. As we read their stories and letters to David, more of his identity is revealed, but much more so, the identity of the letter writers. The letters focus […]
A break-neck journey into the heart of darkness
The book opens with a quote from Heart of Darkness, making the reader pretty aware that this is unlikely to be a cheerful story full of rainbows, bunnies and unicorns. Our unnamed narrator is a young Norwegian boy, not yet turned eighteen, on a rather impulsive journey to the Ivory Coast with his best friend, a former Liberian child soldier named Sam. Sam, who has lived in Norway for some years, has been told that his mother is still alive and the two boys are now […]