Men in My Situation: A Novel
Description
A tender, merciless portrait of a life going to pieces by the internationally acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses.
Arvid Jansen is in a tailspin, unable to process the grief of losing his parents and brothers in a tragic ferry accident. He spends his time drinking, falling into fleeting relationships with women, and driving around in his Mazda. A year ago, his wife Turid took their three daughters and left him. When Turid unexpectedly calls for a ride home from the train station, he faces the life they’ve made without him.
Now in paperback, Per Petterson’s latest novel, which has been hailed by critics as the equal of his international best seller Out Stealing Horses, explores Arvid’s dark night of the soul. In this moment of faltering hope and despair, his daughter Vigdis—who he’s always felt understood him best—has a crisis of her own and reaches out to him. He must find a way to respond to someone who, after everything, still needs him. Reaching the heights of Petterson’s best work, Men in My Situation is a heartrending, indelible story from a major international writer.
Praise for Men in My Situation: A Novel
“Petterson’s bracing latest captures the rhythms and anomie of grief.”—Publishers Weekly
“Petterson has written a beautifully nuanced, deeply felt, and powerful story of survival.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Per Petterson [is] a master at capturing internal tumult, family relationships and the vicissitudes of grief. . . . ‘Men in My Situation’ is possessed of an austerity and bleakness that is satisfyingly unforgiving.”—Nina Renata Aron, Los Angeles Times
“With ‘Men in My Situation,’ Petterson deepens his examination of grief by animating how a parent's loss, depression and trauma can be passed from one generation to the next. . . . . Ultimately, Petterson provides an honest portrait of how one family unravels — and hopefully is put back together again, albeit in a different configuration.” —S. Kirk Walsh, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Men in My Situation [is] the best book I’ve read this summer. . . . Petterson’s writing (brilliantly rendered by translator Ingvild Burkey) slips away from you, and you watch in quiet amazement as it rises into a beyond that’s lying right there, before you, on the page.”—Cory Stockwell, The Common
“[A] beautiful, touchingly honest novel. . . . Until its final, stunning pages, Men in My Situation plays out with profound sensitivity and insight as a struggle for the soul of Arvid Jansen.”—Robert Crooke, Heavy Feather Review
