Gaute Heivoll

This stunningly atmospheric novel by prize-winning author Heivoll, set in a rural district of southern Norway, covers a period of roughly six decades, from the years of Nazi occupation to the 1990s. In 1994 the narrator, in his mid 60s, has returned to the family home following his mother’s death (his father died some years earlier) to shut the house for the last time and dispose of his parents’ belongings. In the 1940s, during the war, his parents had the house designed and constructed for a specific purpose: since both worked in a psychiatric hospital and were trained in the care of the mentally disabled, and concerned about the lack of such a facility in that part of the country, they built a house that would accommodate a small contingent of patients for whom they would provide long-term care in exchange for a regular government allowance to cover costs. So the house where the narrator grew up was a family home but also a small-scale asylum for patients whose infirmities ranged from mild to severe. Central to the narrator’s recollections of his childhood are five mentally challenged siblings, three boys and two girls, who come under his parents’ care. Heivoll’s novel is built around moments in time—sights, sounds, sensations—and major and minor life events that the narrator recalls, usually with fondness but occasionally with confusion, pain or regret. All the patients residing at the house, which include the narrator’s Uncle Josef, are regarded as family and treated as such. The narrator’s relationship with the five siblings—Lilly, Nils, Ingrid, Erling, Sverre—initially guarded, soon becomes a close and trusting bond, and develops into a crucial formative element of his life that extends beyond childhood. Heivoll the novelist draws each of his characters in precise and sympathetic detail and with striking empathy, emphasizing personal dignity and individual strengths and talents over bizarre tics or obsessive behaviours. At the close, Across the China Sea returns to the 1990s and we join the narrator as he says goodbye to people and things he has known for his entire life. The story is loosely structured and does not build to a conclusion or denouement as much as it draws us along while reminding us that time changes all things and, eventually, everything passes out of existence. Gaute Heivoll, author of Before I Burn, has written another moving and haunting novel about memory in which the past leaves in indelible imprint on the present.… (meer)

A fascinating story set in 1940s Norway, narrated by the son of a family who take on the responsibility for five 'mentally disabled' children, as well as three adult men, acting in what was called the'Christlike Spirit of Love'. The unnamed narrator reflects back over the life of his family as he empties the house on his mother's death.

Each of the cared for have distinct personalities, and embed themselves into the house in the wood.

A quiet novel with some volatile moments.… (meer)

This is a Norwegian bestseller in which the narrator ruminates about an arsonist who terrorized his community at the time of his birth. He also thinks extensively about his relationship with his father and his father's death. This book definitely has that Scandinavian feel - it is written a bit flat and matter-of-factly - it's not as dramatic as the subject of an arsonist on the loose sounds like it would be.

I liked it, but I found myself losing interest periodically and in the end I don't think it will be very memorable for me.… (meer)