First published 2013
In August 1969, Karl Ove arrives at age one with his family to their new home on the island of Tromøya in southern Norway. Here he will spend his childhood years exploring, playing football, discovering girls, and losing himself in music. The boy appears sensitive on the surface, but beneath lies a calculating and manipulative nature shaped by life with his domineering and erratic father. Karl Ove learns to navigate a household ruled by his father's volatile moods and controlling presence. What begins as childhood adventures and typical coming of age experiences becomes a deeper examination of how family dynamics forge character. The novel presents an unforgiving self portrait of the author as a young boy, revealing the complex psychology of a child adapting to an unstable home environment.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Norway, Tromøya
Period: 1969
443 pages · Hardcover · De Geus
Content warnings: abuse, mental-illness