ECHOLAND

This new translation of Norwegian author Petterson's first novel—about a 12-year-old Norwegian boy’s summer holiday with his working-class family—sets the stage for many of his later novels.

As Arvid Jansen arrives in Sweden by ferry, he shows genuine excitement at returning to the familiar yet slightly exotic homeland of his mother—the heroine of To Siberia (2008)—where his grandparents still live, but his pure joy won’t last. Arvid appeared as a younger, generally happy child in Pettersen’s debut short story collection, Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes (2014). Here the tone is less coming-of-age than loss of innocence. Over the summer, Arvid’s awareness of adult issues and his own complex feelings grow and darken. With disgust he watches the attraction between his slightly older sister, Gry, and his friend Mogens blossom into teen romance. Arvid himself sees a couple making love at the beach and later has an unsettling, vaguely sexual interaction with the woman involved. Digging into the secrets surrounding his grandparents, Arvid becomes closer to his mother as he learns the facts behind the death of her beloved brother Jesper (also important in To Siberia), whom he resembles. On the other hand, he goes from allowing his father to hold his hand in public to ignoring his attempts at conversation to outright hostility. While the ending stirs a sense of dread about Arvid’s immediate future, readers of the subsequent, melancholic Arvid novels already translated into English know that he grows up to become a successful if tortured writer; those readers will be fascinated by how Pettersen has knowingly or unknowingly planted the seeds of the later works here, including the importance of boats, Arvid’s interest in American literature, and his horror of divorce.

In this slim work, Pettersen writes with minimalist reticence—a remark here, a detail there—to create poignant lyricism.