Monday, April 21, 2014

Derek B. Miller, Norwegian by Night ** 1/2

Norwegian by Night is a misleading novel. From the cover and the prize it won, it appears to be a Scandinavian crime novel of the sort written by Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell, or Jo Nesbø. In fact, it's a character study of an aging American Jew and an exploration of how our cultural pasts influence our behavior. The simple crime plot is merely a slight frame to hang the story on.

Sheldon Horowitz is an 82-year-old American Jew struggling with guilt over the death of his son Saul in Vietnam. (He believes Saul went to war at Sheldon's prompting.) He lives in Oslo with his granddaughter and her Norwegian husband. He witnesses a domestic dispute that ends in murder, and goes on the lam with the murdered woman's son. The killing turns out to have been a legacy of the Serbia - Kosovo war.

I found Sheldon to be a stereotypical Jewish character. Sheldon's family believes him to be suffering from dementia. This plot device annoyed me, because Sheldon's showed no symptoms of it. His fantasies were clearly his means of coping with his son's death. I was also annoyed when the author introduces a standard thriller character -- the mysterious fixer who lives undetected as a model citizen until his violent skills are called for -- in Chapter 20 of 23. 

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