... you might want it to be OUT STEALING HORSES by Per Petterson. I really haven't read another novel like it and really loved it. The setting is eastern Norway (how many novels have you read that take place in Norway?) and as the book opens, we meet 70 year old Trond Sander. He is living alone in a remote area, remembering the summer of 1948, one of the most important of his life. Almost from the beginning, the reader is aware that Trond is trying to come to terms with himself and his life. He gradually paints a picture of that life and how it has made him the person that he is at the book's beginning. The book moves back and forth in time and as it does we learn more and more about Trond's father and also life in Nazi-occupied Norway during World War II. This was one of the more fascinating elements for me. I wasn't expecting it to be a "war novel," and in many ways it isn't. While the war does play a major role, the book is about so much more: fathers and sons, personal lives being lived during great historical events, nature and our part in it and also about memory, loss and acceptance. The book moves swiftly and suceeds on several levels. While it could be termed a "page-turner," the issues that is deals with are profound and unforgettable.
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