Literature and Fiction · Hardback

Echoes of the City

Norwegian title: Byens spor - Maj

This is the second part of the Echoes of the City trilogy. In this book Maj – and not least her struggle to bring up her children, Signe and Jesper – is in focus. Jesper and his best friend, Jostein the butcher's son, grow from children into young men in each their own way. ‘Sometimes the author's language resembles poetry, other times it flows with cascades bringing to mind great authors like Agnar Mykle... top-class literature.’FÆDRELANDSVENNEN 6/6

‘It's a book filled with sorrow and wistfulness for a time torn between faith in the future and the community's need for social control. It's Lars Saabye Christensen on home turf. It's the author at his best.’BOK365 6/6

‘In this magnificent novel Lars Saabye Christensen delivers quoteworthy and goldlike sentences, vigorous word play and surprising associations.’VG 6/6

‘Among all this year’s fiction, Lars Saabye Christensen’s novel Echoes of the City is, for me, in a class of its own.’DAGEN

The curator of the city’s cultural heritage‘In an extension of this book’s affectionately realistic portrayal of Oslo, both preservation and renewal remain open to possibilities for the attentive curator of the city’s cultural heritage.’KLASSEKAMPEN

'I just have to repeat how impressed I am with Lars Saabye Christensen. It's like he's just sitting there, almost improvising on his keyboard and suddenly he's composed yet another masterpiece, in a trilogy I predict will be as successful as The Half Brother.'DAGBLADET

‘It is so elegant, it is so light and there is such a drive in his language, which leaves me, the reader, sitting there, smiling over his skilful phrasing… Now we have reached the end of the 1950s and the countdown to volume three of this fantastic section of Lars Saabye Christensen’s enormous body of work has already begun. Can somebody out there please tell one of the greatest authors in the history of Norway that we want a lot more books? I want to follow these people and this place all the way – no matter where it ends.

NETTAVISEN, 6/6

‘Saabye Christensen's writing is rich and elegant, and is always easy to read. Burlesque humour verging on farce is counterbalanced by the underlying melancholy. At the outset, one may feel that the book flows too smoothly, but the author gradually tightens his grip to the nth degree… is it really another year until the next book?’ADRESSEAVISEN

Master storyteller 19/10/2018‘Eminent is a big word. Even so, it comes to mind assessing the second volume of Lars Saabye Christensen’s memoir novel, Echoes of the City.’

‘It is hardly news that Lars Saabye Christensen is a master storyteller who is both sharp and affectionate. He showed that with The Half-Brother, now 17 years old, which rapidly acquired classic status. Already, after only two volumes, the new trilogy is well on its way into the same league.’WEEKENDAVISEN

Saabye sucks the reader into 1950s Oslo, 19/10/208.‘The reader breathlessly follows, into and under the skin of the novel’s protagonists; we hear what they hear, see what they see, while the Oslo of days gone by rises out of the mist with its zeitgeist of small shops and events, humility and crushed dreams.’ ‘We look forward to the third part of the Oslo trilogy. It’ll be hard to wait.’INFORMATION

Bright Maj and dark Oslo, 06/10/2018‘Echoes of the City is one of the most absorbing, intimate and warm stories I have read.’KRISTELIGT DAGBLAD

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