"Reading a Petterson novel is like falling into a northern landscape painting―all shafts of light and clear palpable chill." ―Time Fans of Per Petterson's other books in English will be delighted by this opportunity to observe Arvid Jansen in his youth from a fresh perspective. In It's Fine By Me , Arvid befriends a boy named Audun. On Audun's first day of school he refuses to talk or take off his sunglasses; there are stories he would prefer to keep to himself. Audun lives with his mother in a working-class district of Oslo. He delivers newspapers and talks for hours about Jack London and Ernest Hemingway with Arvid. But he's not sure that school is the right path for him and feels that life holds other possibilities. Sometimes tender, sometimes brutal, It's Fine By Me is a brilliant novel from the acclaimed author of Out Stealing Horses and I Curse the River of Time . As the new boy in high school, Audun refuses to remove his dark glasses (“I liked the distance they created”), and his wry, melancholy first-person, present-tense narrative nails how the teen’s defiance hides his fragility. Expelled from Boy Scouts, he knows he will never again join an organized group. Haunted by the death of his brother, Ergel, in a car accident, Audun remembers Ergel as “a pain in the ass,” never mind the priest’s “sentimental waffle” at the funeral. Like Petterson’s award-winning Out Stealing Horses (2007), featuring Audun’s friend Arvid, this story is as much about what is not spoken as it is about the angry daily detail (“It’s funny the things you don’t forget”). Much of the focus is on work, as Audun gets up early to run a paper route, then later quits school for a job in a printing press, until he is fired and cannot go home. The casual comments intensify the heartbreak: Why did his father leave? The spaces make the answers (or lack of them) universal. --Hazel Rochman “ It's Fine By Me . . . convey[s] those ordinary experiences close to Petterson's heart: the pleasure, for example, in the midst of domestic strife, of slowly and very carefully rolling a good cigarette, brewing the perfect coffee and settling down on the sofa with a fine book, like this one.” ― The Guardian “ It's Fine By Me is many things--an engaging coming-of-age tale, a writer's halting journey and a story of family drama and the inevitable stages of grief. With Audun Sletten Petterson has created a hero with gutsy resilience and a nose for the truth of things. You'd like to meet him on a street in your own home town.” ― The Scotsman Per Petterson is the author of books including In the Wake , To Siberia , and I Curse the River of Time . Out Stealing Horses has won the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Norwegian Booksellers' Prize. The New York Times Book Review named it one of the 10 best books of the year. A former bookseller, Petterson lives in Oslo, Norway. Don Bartlett has translated dozens of books of various genres, including several novels and short story collections by Jo Nesbø and It's Fine by Me by Per Petterson. He lives in Norfolk, England. It's Fine By Me By Per Petterson, Don Bartlett Graywolf Press Copyright © 1992 Forlaget Oktober, Oslo All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-55597-626-2 CHAPTER 1 I was thirteen years old and about to start the seventh class at Veitvet School. My mother said she would go with me on the first day – we were new to the area, and anyway she had no job – but I didn't want her to. It was the 18th of August, the sky was all grey, and as I opened the school gate and went into the playground, it started to rain. I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and walked slowly across the open expanse. It was deserted. Midway, I stopped and looked around. To the right there were two red prefabs, and straight ahead lay the squat, blue main building. And there was a flagpole with a wet, heavy flag clinging to the halyard. Through the windows I could see faces, and those sitting on the inside pressed their noses against the panes and watched me standing in the rain. It was bucketing down. It was my first day, and I was late. By the time I reached the entrance, my hair was streaming and my shirt was soaking wet. I took it off and wrung it hard and wiped the sunglasses on my jeans before I put them back, and I pulled my shirt over my head. Then I went in. The first thing I saw was the Norwegian Constitution. It was on the wall, behind glass, just to the right. The second thing was the headmaster's office. There was no mistaking it, because there was a sign on the door. I headed straight for that sign without slackening my pace in case someone was watching me, and I would hate to make them think I didn't know where I was going. I knocked and stared straight at the door while I was waiting, and when a voice shouted 'COME IN!', I opened the door and did not look to either side. It was a large room with shelving along the walls, a spirit duplicator in a