Literature and Fiction · Hardback

The Snapdragon Family

Norwegian title: Maskeblomstfamilien

Lars Saabye Christensen

´I had a good upbringing. Father died when I was twelve. Mum went to bed early. I was an only child.´

With these words Lars Saabye Christensen opens his novel, a chamber play set in the broad avenues behind the Royal Palace in mid-1960s Oslo. The narrator describes his upbringing from age 12 to 17, in a home thick with secrets, pretence, silence and sins of omissions.

The father, a patent engineer, takes his own life on page one. The mother subsequently goes to bed for good, leaving the young narrator to grow up in the care of his bony aunt, whose outlook can darken even the brightest day. And in one scene, during a summer holiday, one of the father's investors who is visiting, manages to tell him: 'You are indeed your father's strangest patent.'

Saabye Christensen's novel is about identity and shame. It is beautifully written, dark, and different."Ghastly good. This is something as rare as a book that really moves you, a book that stands out as something truly unique, just like the protagonist also does."VG

"...a ruthless highlight in the authorship of Lars Saabye Christensen" DAGSAVISEN"He is poetic as ever, but reveal a dark dimension that lures us with depths and riddles. We want more of this!"DAGBLADET

"The Snapdragon Family conveys something timeless. It is a great novel, which deserves many readers. Applause to Saabye Christensen!"TØNSBERGS BLAD

"After so much has been said, I would like to reiterate that Saabye Christensen, with The Snapdragon Family, has written his best novel in my opinion."BERGENS TIDENDE