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Adam Haslett
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Out Stealing Horses: Summary and book reviews of Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson, plus links to an excerpt from Out Stealing Horses and a biography of Per Petterson.
Out Stealing Horses A Novel
by
Per Petterson
Hardcover: Apr 2007,
288 pages.
Paperback: Apr 2008,
256 pages.
Trond’s friend Jon often appeared at his doorstep with an adventure in mind for the two of them. But this morning was different. What began as a joy ride on “borrowed” horses ends with Jon falling into a strange trance of grief. Trond soon learns what befell Jon earlier that day—an incident that marks the beginning of a series of vital losses for both boys.
Set in the easternmost region of Norway, Out Stealing Horses begins with an ending. Sixty-seven-year-old Trond has settled into a rustic cabin in an isolated area to live the rest of his life with a quiet deliberation. A meeting with his only neighbor, however, forces him to reflect on that fateful summer.
Book Reviews
BookBrowse
Many authors ladle out plot in great splashy dollops, Per Peterson measures his with quiet coffee spoons. What at first looks to be a classic coming-of-age story set in Norway, slowly reveals itself to be something more. What that something is is not entirely spelled out, which makes Out Stealing Horses a literary treat for readers who prefer not to be spoon-fed every detail, and instead enjoy filling in some of the gaps for themselves. Full Review (members only, 999 words).
Booklist
The novel's incidents and lush but precise descriptions...are on a par with those of Cather, Steinbeck, Berry, and Hemingway, and its emotional force and flavor are equivalent to what those authors can deliver, too.
Kirkus Reviews
Haunting, minimalist prose and expert pacing give this quiet story from Norway native Petterson (In the Wake, 2006, etc.) an undeniably authoritative presence.
Publishers Weekly
Petterson coaxes out of Trond's reticent, deliberate narration a story as vast as the Norwegian tundra.
Entertainment Weekly
Per Petterson fluently jumbles his chronology, sustaining mysteries within several subplots and vivifying evergreen ideas about determinism and the bonds of family. But the real trick is in the way everything finally, neatly converges into an emotional jolt.
New York Sun
Mr. Patterson has something like her talent for scene setting and chronological collage, and all of the writers above have mastered a kind of tempered, minor-key retrospection. Out Stealing Horses is one of my favorite two or three new novels to appear this year.
The Guardian (UK) - Ian Thomson
This book is a minor masterpiece of death and delusion in a Nordic land.
Sunday Telegraph (UK)
The plotting is so subtle that one barely notices questions being raised and then, cleverly, answered. By the end, when all the pieces fall into place, we can see how elegantly Petterson has constructed matters, letting us live in a mystery we don't know needs solving until the solution is presented.
The New York Times - Thomas McGuane
This short yet spacious and powerful book...a gripping account of such originality as to expand the reader’s own experience of life.
The Independent - Paul Binding
Anne Born's sensitive translation does justice to an impressive novel of rare and exemplary moral courage, and commendably makes convincing the confrontations of different individuals, different milieux.
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Out Stealing Horses
(members only, 999 words).
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