An international sensation sold in seventeen countries around the world, Doghead has critics across the globe declaring, “brilliant,” “magnificent,” “powerful and engaging.” “When I read it I had to pinch my arm to see if I was dreaming,” says Weekendavisen (Denmark). “It was really that good.” Morten Ramsland won Author of the Year and Book of the Year for Doghead in Denmark, and critical comparisons include Gunter Grass, Jonathan Franzen, Peter Høeg and Gabriel Garcia Marquez—everyone agrees that here is a world-class writer.
In Doghead, Ramsland treats U.S. readers to a highly imaginative, exuberant saga that follows three generations of a wildly dysfunctional Norwegian family. The talebegins as Asger, the narrator, visits his dying grandma, who has a few corrections to make to certain family stories. Asger learns that contrary to popular belief, Grandpa was not a war hero. Instead, his nickname was "Crackpot," and both before and after he escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, he was to put it bluntly, a cheat and a liar.
While Ramsland has received comparisons to John Irving and other writers lauded for using magical realism within the context of a family saga, his writing most aptly conjures an anarchic, more salacious version of Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish author best known for creating Pippi Longstocking. (Reviewed by Marnie Colton).
New York Times - Clare Clark
Although the final pages suggest that Ramsland might allow a degree of redemption for those characters who remain onstage, it comes too late to alter the perception of a book that, while enthusiastically engaging with the coarser aspects.
Entertainment Weekly - Kate Ward
Though intricate shifts in time make for a complex read, Doghead — which has plenty of bite — is definitely worth the effort. Rated: A–
Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Ramsland masterfully captures a zigzagging litany of recollections across generations and the cold North Sea, revealing the family's true fortune: survival in the space between deep dysfunction and enduring love.
Kirkus Reviews
The fact that it may have been fueled by psychedelic mushrooms does not subtract from its truth value. An earthy, funny, unflinching family history.
Booklist
Starred Review. The characters and their stories will stay with thoughtful readers, and many may even find resonances to their own lives.
Library Journal
Starred Review. Enthusiastically recommended for public libraries.
Independent on Sunday (UK), Books of the Year.
A huge international success…combines rambunctiousness, salty humor and poetic imagination.
Weekendavisen (Denmark)
A brilliant magical realist family saga. Better than Peter Høeg.
Stern (Germany)
A book reminiscent of Grass' The Tin Drum in its humor and Angela's Ashes in its heartfelt affection…the family novel par excellence.
Cubism (c. 1907 - 1921)
Asger inherits his love of art from Grandpa Askild, who paints in the Cubist style
pioneered by artists like Pablo
Picasso, Georges
Braque, and Juan
Gris, influenced by Paul Cezanne's later work. Although some art historians
now credit the lesser-known Braque with creating the first Cubist paintings, Picasso's
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, painted
in 1907, was long considered Cubism's precursor, and the beginning of modern art.
Though it wasn't exhibited until 1914, it wrestles with ideas that would become
central to the Cubist movement -- "the most important and influential single innovation
in the early history of modern art," according to historian Simon Wilson.
Brilliant and utterly enthralling in its depiction of childhood, love and war, England and class. At its center this is a profound–and profoundly moving–exploration of shame, forgiveness and the difficulty of absolution.
The inaugural installment of what will become an annual anthology of stories from across Europe.
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(1133 words).
New York Times - Clare Clark
Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
