I Curse the River of Time

Starred review from June 14, 2010
Like an emotional sucker punch, the latest novel from the much-acclaimed Petterson (a prequel to 2006's In the Wake) examines lives half-lived, ending, and perhaps beginning anew. In 1989, 37-year-old Arvid Jansen's marriage is ending and his mother is dying of cancer. Hoping to leave his marital woes behind in Oslo, Jansen follows his Danish-born mother to her home country, to the beach house where the family spent summers. During the ferry ride and the following days in Denmark, Jansen recalls his childhood bond with his mother and his decision, after two years of college, to leave school and join his fellow Communists in the factories. He struggles with his commitment to communism—the title is a line from a poem by Mao—and with his place in his family and in the larger world. Thankfully, there is neither overt sentimentalism nor a deathbed declaration of love between mother and son, but Petterson blends enough hope with the gorgeously evoked melancholy to come up with a heartbreaking and cautiously optimistic work.

Starred review from April 15, 2010
At 37, Arvid Jansen sees his world falling apart. His divorce is imminent, the Cold War is over, and the life choices he made to burnish his credibility with the Communist Party now seem sadly irrelevant. Eschewing the college education his parents toiled so hard to provide him, Arvid chose shift work in a factory, a decision that caused a rift with his mother, all the more untenable now that she's been diagnosed with cancer. Crippled by grief, guilt, and an unlovely excess of self-pity, Arvid tries to come to grips with the present by reexamining the past, in particular the effect of his younger brother's death on the family dynamic. VERDICT The atmosphere of this latest from Petterson, famed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner "Out Stealing Horses", is as gray as the stark Norwegian landscape. Melancholy permeates every character like a dense Oslo fog. Yet, this author's gift is his ability to convey so much emotion in such a spare prose style. Petterson's reputation and the litany of prizes awarded to this work after its release in Europe last year make it essential for all literary collections. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 3/15/10.]Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Ft. Myers, FL

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2010
Europe 1989. As communism crumbles, 37-year-old Norwegian Arvid Jansens life is falling apart. Hes getting a divorce, and his mother is dying of cancer. Shes traveled to her native Denmark, where she plans to live out her days. Though mother and son shared a passion for books, they were never close, and Arvid follows her there in one last attempt to connect. This is also the land of his childhood, and every place he goes triggers memories. He indulges recollections of past loves, beach vacations with his brothers, and time spent as a young Communist working in a factory. (He dropped out of college, much to his mothers chagrin.) Norwegian novelist Petterson (Out Stealing Horses, 2007) deftly alternates between present and past, as Arvid searches for purpose in his life. There are autobiographical elements at work here; Pettersons own mother was a voracious reader who considered him intellectually lazy because he didnt speak German. Pettersons plot is a bit sluggish, but his prose is eloquent and spare. A bleak but involving novel that will appeal to readers of character-driven literary fiction.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)