Be Kind to The Animals

Winner of the 2016 Norwegian Book Award Brageprisen

A small family of three is falling apart. They couldn’t make it. Karen couldn’t make it. While doing everything right – parting as friends, signing the papers for shared custody the way a modern woman is supposed to, everything inside her is rebelling. No, the child is mine. I’m its mother. There is nothing modern about me.

Karen questions her role as a mother without a well-functioning family? Is the daughter still hers when she is with her father? If you’re a mother one week, what are you the next? Be Kind to the Animals is a raw, warm, acute, but at the same time surprising novel about living in the ruins of a marriage with the one you care about the most – every other week.

Foreign sales:

Albania, Aleph
Bulgaria, Perseus Publishing House
Denmark, Gladiator
Sweden, Brombergs
Germany, Eichborn Verlag
Poland, Czarne

Reviews:

“… a nerve, a realness rarely seen in Norwegian contemporary literature. The book we should all read this fall.” 
Moss Avis

“… poetic, energetic and very well done about a marriage coming apart”
VG

“The best divorce novel I have ever read (…) a dark and funny,  somewhat laden novel about feelings that are almost forbidden.” 
Aftonbladet, Sweden

“This summer’s literary highlight (…) one of this fall’s best books”
Dagens Nyheter, Sweden

“A pitch black, stylistically impressive novel, well deserving of the Norwegian National Book Award.” 
Gøteborgs Posten, Sweden

“An extraordinary reading experience” 
Hamar Arbeiderblad

“…. merciless, but also surprisingly funny, with an abundance of ideas.” 
Morgenbladet

“An incredibly beautiful and precise description of a life dilemma. The world needs to see this book.” 
Sissel Gran, author, psychologist and marital therapist