Thirty-seven short stories. First published as Alt som før by Forlaget Oktober.
Contents:
A bucket of time -- A lovely spot -- A sudden liberating thought -- Encounter -- Everything like before -- I'm not like this, I'm not like this -- Mardon's night -- Midsummer -- The dogs of Thessaloniki -- Sunhat -- The grasshopper -- The joker -- The nail in the cherry tree -- The other dream -- After the funeral service -- Georg -- Gerhard P -- Gustav Herre -- Konrad T -- Marion -- The cost of friendship -- The toilet bag -- Nothing for nothing -- The wake -- An uplifting funeral -- Thomas F's final notes to the public -- Carl Lange -- Chess -- Carl -- My goodness -- Café-goers -- Maria -- Mrs. M -- The banister -- The disturbance -- At the barber's -- Thomas.
Summary:
"From Kjell Askildsen comes a collection of spare, biting stories of people caught between reality and expectation, hope and despair, love and longing. A man and a woman in a quiet, remote house, an old man on a park bench, an estranged brother in a railway café -- Kjell Askildsen's characters are surrounded by absence. Filled with disquiet, and longing, they walk to a fjord, they smoke, they drink on a veranda, they listen to conversations that drift through open windows. Small flashes like the promise of a sunhat, a nail in a cherry tree, or a raised flag, reveal the interminable space between desire and reality in which Askildsen's characters are forever suspended. Widely recognized as one of the greatest modern short-story writers, with unadorned prose and a dark humor, Askildsen captures life as it really is, the worlds of his characters uncanny mirrors of our own"-- Provided by publisher.
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