Out Stealing Horses

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,… show more.

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… show more.