Norwegian by Night

Derek B. Miller

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571294278 ISBN 13: 9780571294275

Verlag: Faber & Faber, 2013

Used book

Revue de presse:

"A terrific thriller . . . a great story told in writing that is clear and powerful, detailed without being ornate. In a word, it is wonderful." -- Buffalo News

 

“Norwegian by Night shifts along like an inquisitive wind, with a voice so confident you would follow it into a leaning house. Generous with its wit, dazzling in its cultural and historical reach, Derek Miller’s novel is the kind of sweep-you-up tale a reader always wants but rarely finds, the kind where you stand in the bookstore reading the opening pages and whisper, This is the one.” — Leif Enger, author of Peace Like a River

 

“Have you ever lucked into one of those novels so taut and suspenseful that you can’t turn the pages fast enough, yet at the same time so magnificently written and psychologically incisive that you find yourself unable to turn those same pages slowly enough? Such novels are as rare as great comets. Norwegian by Night, I'm happy to report, is one. Make sure you’re in a comfortable spot when cracking this book; you won’t be putting it down for an obscenely long while.” — Jonathan Miles, author of Dear American Airlines

 

“This novel is ostensibly a Scandinavian thriller yet recalls Saul Bellow’s and Philip Roth’s more cerebral creations . . . A remarkably confident debut that is at once a rich psychological study, a political ¬parable that seems to be about America’s compulsion to intervene abroad, and a moving story of an old man’s last chance to slay his demons.” — Sunday Times (UK)

 

“Norwegian by Night is not just a great title, it’s also a soulful, humane, and sparklingly funny novel. Spend some time with Sheldon and company in the Scandinavian wilderness and you just might make peace with your god, your ghosts, and yourself.” — Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

 

“Norwegian by Night is an outrageously intelligent thriller, and its philosopher-sniper hero, Sheldon Horowitz, is a character who’ll stay in your brain for decades. You might come for the guns and the ruckus, but by the last page, with your heart still pounding, you’ll be crying at all the goddamned beauty and love in the world.” — Patrick Somerville, author of This Bright River

Présentation de l'éditeur:

Crime Writers Association John Creasey Dagger Award winner
An ECONOMIST TOP FICTION TITLE OF THE YEAR
A FINANCIAL TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
A GUARDIAN BEST CRIME AND THRILLER OF THE YEAR
A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST CRIME NOVEL OF THE YEAR

A luminous novel, a police thriller, and the funniest book about war crimes and dementia you are likely to read

Sheldon Horowitz—widowed, impatient, impertinent—has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway: a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman, who failed his only son by sending him to Vietnam to die. Not until now, anyway.

Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbor’s young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. But old age and circumstances are altering Sheldon’s experience of time and memory. He is haunted by dreams of his son Saul’s life and by guilt over his death. As Sheldon and the boy look for a haven in an alien world, reality and fantasy, past and present, weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.

Norwegian by Night introduces an ensemble of unforgettable characters—Sheldon and the boy, Rhea and Lars, a Balkan war criminal named Enver, and Sigrid and Petter, the brilliantly dry-witted investigating officers—as they chase one another, and their own demons, through the wilderness at the end of the world.