Absolution - Softcover

Olafsson, Olaf

Softcover

ISBN 10: 185799227X ISBN 13: 9781857992274

Publisher: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd ), 1995

Synopsis

'You have heard stories, many stories, true and fictitious, about everything under the sun - everything except my little crime. Nobody except me knows about that.' Peter Peterson is wracked with nightmares of the past. Now a dying man leading a degenerate and shadowy life in New York, estranged from his family, he confesses everything, from his boyhood in Reykjavik to his escape from Nazi-occupied Denmark - and, of course, the 'little crime' that destroyed his life.

About this title

Review

"Brilliant . . . a tour de force." -The New York Times Book Review

"Powerfully accomplished. . . . Absolution sets long reverberations tolling in the reader's mind." -The New York Review of Books

"A clever, unexpectedly enjoyable novel of crime and punishment." -The New York Times

"A fascinating, wintry tale of a frozen heart." -The Wall Street Journal

"A literary triumph. . . . The book works extremely well both as a psychological thriller and as a character study." -The European

"A solemn, intellectually challenging work." -Chicago Tribune

"The first book in English by this top-notch Nordic novelist, who may become that true rarity, an Icelandic Nobel Prize winner." -Forbes Magazine

"Surprisingly effective. . . . This story of crime and punishment is an impressive novel. . . . A modest, but not unworthy, offspring of Dostoevsky's towering predecessor." - The Economist

"Compulsive reading, and the spare, dry language concentrates the suspense. . . . As cold and lucid as a quartz crystal." -Independent on Sunday

"Spellbinding. . . . Formidably written." -Entertainment Weekly

"The novel whose aftertaste has lingered longest this year is Absolution. . . . Its deep humanity and elegiac tone made it oddly exhilarating. . . . A superlative example of the genre, which reverberates in the reader's mind because of the craftsmanship and integrity which Olafsson has brought to the story." -Sunday Telegraph

"[A] sophisticated novel . . . written in clear, sparse prose." -The Times (London)

"Olafsson's debut as a writer in English has more than curiosity value: this is a fine novel." -Time Out

"Icelander Olafsson's style has the linear austerity and emotionally supercharged restraint that seems a Nordic hallmark. . . . The honesty of this first-person account of a traumatised conscience holds the attention. The slow-burning fuse of the narrator's guilt . . . smoulders through skilled writing and narrative integrity." -The Observer

"Funny, sad and utterly enjoyable." -The Spectator

Book Description

A brilliant and intriguing anatomy of revenge and evil, reminiscent of Ian McEwan's BLACK DOGS.

Edition details

• Publisher: Phoenix (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 185799227X
• ISBN 13: 9781857992274
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264