First published 2013
Audun sits in his Oslo classroom wearing sunglasses, refusing to speak when his teacher asks about his past. He won't mention the makeshift cardboard homes or the night his drunk father shot three bullets into the ceiling after his baby brother was born. Now the teenager lives with his mother in a working class neighborhood after his family scattered. He delivers newspapers to earn money and spends late nights discussing Jack London and Hemingway with his friend Arvid. School feels wrong for him, like a path meant for someone else entirely. He senses there are other possibilities beyond these classroom walls. Audun navigates between the brutal realities of his childhood and the tender moments that keep him going forward.
Genres: literary-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, young-adult, family-drama
Vibes: gritty, intimate, introspective, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Oslo, Norway
Period: late-teens
208 pages · Paperback · Random House Export
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, child-abuse, domestic-violence