The Half Brother

A Danish former silent-film actress known as the Old One, her daughter Boletta, who works at the telegraph office, and Boletta’s daughter Vera share a flat on Kirkeveien in Oslo. On the day of liberation, 8 May 1945, Vera is raped in the building’s drying loft, and nine months later her son Fred is born in a taxi. Five years on comes his half-brother Barnum, son of a clown and small-time trader. The novel follows the brothers through very different boyhoods in 1960s and 1970s Oslo: undersized Barnum, the artist who meets one painful defeat after another and is sometimes rescued by his harder-hitting brother, and silent Fred, who lives in the shadows and keeps secrets. Around them a colourful family spanning four generations, from boxing to dancing school, is set against a vivid historical backdrop.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

650 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

Norway, 1945–1970s

First published

2001 by Cappelen

Author's age

48 when first published

ISBN

9788202202088 (original)

9781900850742 (Arcadia Books, United Kingdom)

9781559707152 (Arcade Publishing, United States)

9780099459163 (Vintage, United Kingdom)

9781611457896 (Arcade Publishing, United States)

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