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Published May 2013
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Sheldon Horowitz - widowed, impatient, impertinent - has grudgingly agreed to leave New York and move in with his granddaughter, Rhea, and her new husband, Lars, in Norway: a country of blue and ice with one thousand Jews, not one of them a former Marine sniper in the Korean War turned watch repairman, who failed his only son by sending him to Vietnam to die. Not until now, anyway.
Home alone one morning, Sheldon witnesses a dispute between the woman who lives upstairs and an aggressive stranger. When events turn dire, Sheldon seizes and shields the neighbor's young son from the violence, and they flee the scene. But old age and circumstances are altering Sheldon's experience of time and memory. He is haunted by dreams of his son Saul's life and by guilt over his death. As Sheldon and the boy look for a haven in an alien world, reality and fantasy, past and present, weave together, forcing them ever forward to a wrenching moment of truth.
Norwegian by Night introduces an ensemble of unforgettable characters - Sheldon and the boy, Rhea and Lars, a Balkan war criminal named Enver, and Sigrid and Petter, the brilliantly dry-witted investigating officers - as they chase one another, and their own demons, through the wilderness at the end of the world.
"Miller's affecting debut...is an unusual hybrid: part memory novel, part police procedural, part sociopolitical tract and part existential meditation...First published in Norway, [Norwegian By Night] was worth the wait." - Kirkus
"Both an exciting chase thriller and a poignant story about a man who comes into his own again in his dotage." - Library Journal
"Starred Review. No brief plot outline can do justice to a book that deserves to find a place on a few best-of-the-year lists. Sheldon is a brilliantly imagined character, a true mensch, made of Greatest Generation stuff... Miller joins the ranks of Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, and Jo Nesbø, the holy trinity of Scandinavian crime novelists." - Booklist
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"A literate, thoughtful and unusual thriller...Our image of Scandinavia is one of tolerance - Miller doesn't disagree with the image, but Norwegian by Night offers a fascinating fictional exploration of the meaning and implementation of that tolerance." - The Times (UK)
"Norwegian by Night has all the ingredients of a top-notch thriller, but it's the superb characterisation of the protagonist that fuels true suspense. Funny and moving as well as thoroughly gripping, this is crime fiction of the highest order." - The Guardian
"Norwegian by Night is not just a great title, it's also a soulful, humane, and sparklingly funny novel. Spend some time with Sheldon and company in the Scandinavian wilderness and you just might make peace with your god, your ghosts, and yourself." - Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Phtot: author
Derek B. Miller has worked on international peace and security for think tanks, diplomatic missions, and the United Nations. His first novel, Norwegian by Night, was an Indies Choice Honor Book, an Economist best book of 2013, and a winner of the Crime Writers' Association's John Creasey Dagger Award. His second novel, The Girl in Green, was published in 2017. Born and raised in Boston, Miller has lived abroad for more than fifteen years, in Norway, Switzerland, Britain, Israel, and Hungary. He now lives in Oslo, Norway, with his wife and two children.
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