Book description
A bestseller and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, now in paperback from Graywolf Press for the first time
We were going out stealing horses. That was what he said, standing at the door to the cabin where I was spending the summer with my father. I was fifteen.…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Out Stealing Horses as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
This novel has everything I love – a narrator who’s definitely not telling us everything, newly arrived in a remote house by a lake in Norway that is so clearly drawn I can see and feel it in my bones.
Trond has secrets and this is where he’s going to live now. There’s a man down the track whose window he can see when it falls dark. A river flows fast beyond the trees. Petterson’s beautiful, spare writing creates a filmic atmosphere in which past mysteries unfold as Trond begins to learn to live alone with his past.
Stunning story-telling,…
From Sarah's list on solitude by one who fears and yearns for it.
My therapist once told me that regret is a useless emotion. Rather than regretting the many ways my father and I struggled to connect when he was alive, I should acknowledge the sadness but remember I was acting (and not acting) within a particular set of circumstances.
Out Stealing Horses dives into similarly difficult terrain, where clear-cut answers remain elusive. It follows a man trying to make peace with a father who abandoned him. The understated sorrow of that proves to be as chilling as the Nordic landscape Per Petterson describes.
It’s a haunting testament to the ongoing struggle of…
From William's list on surviving dysfunctional families.
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A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
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