An 18-year-old girl, Gjøa, runs away from a home torn apart by divorce in order to take a summer job at Fægrane, a tourist lodge at the top of a glen in the northwest of Norway. For 29 years, Gunnar and Olaug Fægrane have run the lodge; Olaug is the pragmatic, detail-obsessed wife, crippled from too much work and too little money, while Gunnar is content to do as little as possible. Their son, Ingebrigt, has come home for the summer after his half-hearted pursuit of a degree, with about as much desire to help run the lodge as his father.

Eventually, Gjøa is able to confide in Ingebrigt, whom she’ll rely on as she comes to understand the consequences of having acted out as a result of her frustration over her family situation. End It All is a story about being stuck and wanting to escape, about mothers and sons, about making waffles and night-time fishing trips, about rebellion and ancient family feuds—and about trying to keep going as best one can, instead of ending it all.

Winner of the Tarjej Vesaas' Debutant Prize 2018

Foreign Sales:
Hungary, HELIKON

Praise
‘Debut novelist Lars Svisdal presents the reader with sentences dripping with observation and insight. It should earn him the literature award bearing the name of one of his obvious predecessors. (...) Just as impressive as the character portrayals are Svisdal’s building of worlds: This mountain lodge and its surroundings seem to exist in the real world. The writing brings places utterly to life to the extent that they have their own existence and presence in the text, even when there are other things going on.’
Bernhard Ellefsen, Morgenbladet

‘End it all spans great extremes in attitudes, work and morals. In style and vocabulary it is linguistically supple too, and as such Lars Svisdal writes beautifully within a tradition of fiction, while being the most contemporary of debut novelists.’
Jan Askelund, Stavanger Aftenblad

‘... the panorama of idiosyncratic voices brings End it all to life as something more than a story: it is an action-packed painting that sees everything happening simultaneously, in the foreground and further back. [...] The sentences and dialogue are spirited, full of insight on multiple levels; the tone is adorned with satire, but at the same time also spare. [...] At the heart of Svisdal's knack for words lies, after all this, a love for life, floating like a soft blue sky over this original and mature debut.’
Sindre Andersen, Klassekampen

’The most striking thing about Svisdal's novel is how credible both the characters and the environment are. [...] Svisdal demonstrates his confidence in what he is doing. Each character has their way of thinking and communicating, and as a reader you are left in no doubt about who is speaking at all times. The composition is also exquisite, creating just enough excitement that you cannot put the book down without wanting to know what is going to happen next. [...] If you read just one debut novelist this year, let it be Lars Svisdal!’
Eva Gikling, Driva

‘Lars Svisdal's first book in no way feels like an apprenticeship. His New Norwegian – or should we say, his use of dialect – adds perfect nuance to the environment he portrays, and his monologues are mustered up from the unbearable reality. By that I mean that they last a long time without necessarily bearing any fruit. This is meant as unreserved praise. The text is also characterised by a rather black humour, and a bold compulsion to write.’
Fartein Horgar, Adresseavisen

‘All in all, Svisdal has written an exceptionally realistic novel where the style is somewhere at the crossroads between Duun and Uppdal, but with a more elaborate use of literary tools, a greater proximity to the characters and, fortunately, more ordinary dialogue, even though the principles behind the somewhat insignificant conflicts are some of the world’s great questions, usually dealing with questions of right and wrong.’
Odd W. Surén, Dag og Tid

’Lars Svisdal writes well. From the very first pages of the novel, and using only language and choice of words, he places the reader in a mountain-farm landscape. The language is rich, hugely varied and clearly the marked by dialect – providing an experience of something authentic, and thus real and important.’
Karen Frøsland Nystøyl, Vårt Land

‘Lars Svisdal's book stands out, no matter what. Very few debut novelists write like he does. It’s not just a question of his divergent linguistic form, but also of his pithy images and descriptions of situations.’
Anne Merethe K. Prinos, Aftenposten

Lars Svisdal

Publications