”Painful and beautiful…one of our most exclusive authors, with his own linguistic rhythm, a blend of conscious naiveté of language, and of thematic precision. … It is a heart-wrenching read in all its simplicity. … Vaage is too much of a poet to write a dark novel. To the contrary: This book is colourful and pictorial. It is also a beautiful novel of childhood memories, and of how our inner images are built.”
DAGBLADET
“A superior depiction of the inner logic and horrifying consequences of so-called madness, as it is expressed in a small, vulnerable family in a transparent community… Vaage writes so well, and so urgently that it is painful to read…. Magically Vaage succeeds in uniting the outer story with the intimate psychological depictions… Vaage writes with rare intensity about subjects he has deep insight into, and he does this in a prose to be admired and enjoyed; varied, simple and complex, melodious and deeply poetic.”
6/6 stars, VG
“Masterly done”
NRK
”If you remain unmoved by The Shadow and The Queen, you must be a troll. … I am not a lover of sentences such as ‘the most important book this fall.’ But after reading The Shadow and The Queen it is hard not to think that thought. Vaage’s book is nonetheless an extraordinarily beautiful novel that should ensure the author nominations to all of this fall’s book awards.”
DAGSAVISEN
”Vaage’s instrument is perception, through musical language… He tells us, from an intense insider perspective, about what happens to these people, in such a way that we are moved by it. Vaage gives them back their voices. It is no small achievement.”
MORGENBLADET
”a gripping, extraordinarily moving book in which the author closes in on the thematic of madness with the exploratory, contemplative and precise language of poetry”
DAG OG TID
”A striking and beautiful novel of madness.”
AFTENPOSTEN
”Lars Amund Vaage writes prose of the highest quality … this is a novel everyone should read.”
KLASSEKAMPEN
”A stirring, finely tuned depiction of a family with psychological problems, seen through a little boy in a Western Norwegian village”
ADRESSEAVISEN, ANNUAL FAVORITES
