Echoland

by Per Petterson

Genres: Family Life; Coming of Age

Synopsis

The shimmering, windswept first novel by the internationally acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses.

Echoland is the powerful and emotionally resonant first novel from Per Petterson. Written in the mold of his early story collection Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes, it features a young Arvid Janssen, who is now twelve, on the verge of his teenage years and beginning to understand more about the world and his place in it. Set over the course of a single formative summer, the novel captures a series of episodes from Arvid’s long visit to his grandparents’ home in Denmark. He rides his bike around town, befriends other children on the beach, fishes for plaice, and weathers misunderstandings with his mother and grandparents, all of which Petterson imbues with the hope and yearning that come with this stage of life. Echoland is an assured and poignant beginning for an author—and character—who would go on to be loved the world over.

Release date: February 1, 2022

Publisher: Graywolf Press

Print pages: 144

Sample

THE COAST ROSE, BUT NOT BY MUCH

They sailed across the sea to Denmark. Along the fjord the bonfires lit up the summer evening and Arvid stood by the railing gazing towards land, pretending they were stars. The lights rose and fell and they shone on the water and he heard laughter and singing from the shore, but the ship was quiet.

The ship was called the Vistula and had been named after a river in Poland. Arvid had never been to Poland, but before they were past Nesodden his father had told the story about the man who was going to America on board the Stavanger Fjord. The engine packed up almost at once and they had to sail round Hovedøya island back to the harbour and then the man was standing on deck shouting in an American accent to those who hadn’t yet left the quay: ‘Is my old mother still alive?’ But Arvid had heard the story so many times before and only his father laughed.

The white houses sank and withdrew into the countryside and slowly the fjord grew wider. The Vistulapassed Drøbak and sailed on through the sound where the wreck of the battleship Blücher lay on the seabed by Oscarsborg fortress. They had sailed over it and perhaps the dead bodies were still there. The skies turned dark, but not by much, for it was Midsummer Night, and then it happened, what he was waiting for. The little boat from the town of Horten appeared from behind an island and chugged across the fjord in a wide arc. The noise from the Vistula’s engine went quiet until he could barely hear its thrumming, and the spray from the bows ceased. The Vistula glided through the water, waiting, and Arvid waited too. The little boat approached and turned until it was in line with the ship. Arvid could see the skipper at the helm and his white cap, and a couple were standing on the deck with a suitcase between them. The man was holding his hat and the woman was looking straight down.

There was a clang from the side of the ship and a gangway was extended from the hull. Arvid leaned further over and saw a hand stretched out below, and suddenly he felt a grip around his thigh. His whole body went cold and he turned quickly. He saw a man smiling.

‘Fancy a late evening swim, do you? Be careful,’ he said, with an even bigger smile. He had a hat on, and a coat, and he looked ordinary. ‘You just watch, I will hold you.’

Arvid stared at him. In the end he said: ‘You will not,’ and turned away again. Now the little boat was up close, and they rocked towards each other and away again with the waves they themselves had made, and the man with the suitcase said, ‘Now,’ and stepped across. The outstretched hand helped him in and then it waved to the woman. She stared at the open water between the boats, which was no more than a thin strip, where the tyres the length of the Horten boat kept them apart.

‘No,’ she said in a loud voice, but the hand only waved more eagerly.

‘No, you idiot!’ she shouted. ‘I don’t want to!’ And then Arvid could see who owned the hand for he leaned right over and grabbed the woman’s shoulder and pulled her across.

‘Idiot!’ she screamed.

The man behind Arvid laughed and said: ‘That was a bad start to the holiday. There must be easier ways of getting to Denmark.’ He stood right by Arvid, and Arvid straightened up and moved away from the railing.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Arvid Jansen.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Twelve. Almost.’

‘You’re a fine figure of a lad,’ the man said, stroking Arvid’s hair, and Arvid took a step back.

‘No I am not. I’m Italian.’

‘Is that right?’ said the man, raising an eyebrow, for he knew nothing at all about Bruno Angelini, the baker’s son from Naples who thought the city’s streets were hot enough without having to stand in his father’s bakery as well. It was as hot as hell there and Bruno longed to get out to where the air didn’t stand still and the eye could see further than the nearest stack of loaves. He could have become a fisherman or a labourer and chose the latter, at seventeen. He worked on roads for several years and then he worked on railways, when railways were stretching across Italy to hold the new state together. For this job strong men were required who would graft. Bruno was small, but he was strong and he could graft. He was going further and further away from Naples, and sometimes all he longed for was the glittering bay with Capri in the distance.

To the north there were more rivers and valleys and ravines, and bridges had to be built. Bruno built bridges. Soon there was no type of bridge he hadn’t worked on, and when a call went out for experienced labourers to build a railway bridge across the Limfjord in Denmark, in the far north, Bruno was among those who signed up. Arvid’s history book told of a Europe emerging from several wars, and travelling north was not without dangers. But Bruno set off, and in the spring of 1874 he found accommodation in Ålborg on the Limfjord.

It took almost five years. When the bridge was finished four Italians had died, five Frenchmen and many others had life-changing injuries. Bruno was the foreman of a five-man team and most of the time they worked underwater, in pressure chambers where three of them dug the mud and two sent it up a shaft. Above them the huge pillars were built with hard-baked bricks and they felt heavy on Bruno’s shoulders and neck.

In 1879 all the guest workers went back home, except Bruno. He wanted to see the Danish king open the bridge, and he had grown fond of the country with the low coastline, although his respect for Danish engineers had diminished.

King Christian took the train from Ålborg to Nørresundby on the northern side of the Limfjord. He was supposed to walk back and open the bridge, but the rain came down and the wind picked up, so he took the train back again, and from Ålborg station he crossed in a coach which brought him dry-shod to the opening ceremony.

‘Useless monarch!’ Bruno said, standing among the Danish workers.

Now he was finished with bridges. But he didn’t return home, he went even further north. In the fishing village of Bangsbostrand he met a girl who was blonde and her name was Lotte, and so he became a fisherman after all. But that was all fine for it wasn’t so hot here and even a short man could see a long distance in Northern Jutland and the air was never still. In each generation after him there was one Italian, and when Arvid thought about him he saw an open, tanned face with dark curls above it, and that’s how Arvid himself looked, and what he didn’t know about Bruno, he made up. And he thought, you don’t have to be Norwegian, you can be something else, somewhere else other than Oslo. You can be an Italian in Denmark. You can leave your own skin and be whoever you like and no one can get near you. Not everyone was brave enough to do this, but Arvid was, and the man in the hat and coat could understand nothing of this. Arvid took another step back and then Gry called to him from the deck above, where she was standing with his mother. The man looked up at them and back down at Arvid and touched his hat as if to another adult and went into the cafeteria.

‘Who was that?’ Gry said afterwards.

‘It was just a man.’

He was allowed to stay up until they passed Færder lighthouse at the mouth of the fjord, which was creepy and lonesome and seductive as it swung its arms round in the night, and then he had to go down to bed. But it was warm inside and the stairs were steep and had banisters of mahogany and brass, there was the smell of engine room and beef in the corridors and inside the cabin there were china pots in the cupboard under the sink. They were for pissing in at night, but after Færder they mostly came out when someone had to throw up.

When his father turned off the light it was pitch black and Arvid didn’t know whether he was asleep or awake for when he opened his eyes he saw as little as he did when he had them closed. He lay there in the night that wrapped itself around him and became a world of its own and felt the boat lift him up, press against his stomach and let him fall, and he smiled in the darkness and heard his father groan on the lower bunk. There was a creak every time he turned to stop himself throwing up.

‘I know you’re grinning, Arvid! ...