AshehougAgency

Burnout

This is a novel about growing up, a story about brutality in a rural community on the western coast of Norway. It is a dark and painful story about victimization—sad, bitter and tragic, but also very clever, absurd and cheeky.

Trym and Robban are best friends until junior high, when everything changes. Robban gets singled out as a victim of bullying, and Trym is incapable of standing up for him. Despite this, the two boys keep hanging out after school, tinkering on cars.

Burnout is the story of brutal youngsters on the edge of panic, doing everything they can to save themselves. At the same time, it’s a story about the complete resignation in those who are already on the outside. All of this is told in first person and with a high, verbal intensity and desperate humor.

Click here to download a presentation of Burnout (pdf).

Praise for Burnout:

”Smashing! ... it occasionally happens that a debut is so flawless, that everything is just right from the very first sentence. This is the case with Tiger Garté’s Burnout. His brutal descriptions of village life in Surnadal are impressively carried out both stylistically and thematically … I have seldom read a literary description of bullying as efficiently hair-raising as this … Garté succeeds in evoking a tenderness and intensity that leaves me, for one, dumbstruck.”
(Cathrine Krøger, DAGBLADET)

“Garté is a first-time novelist writing with conviction and apparently intimate knowledge of his subject.”
(Audun Vinger, MORGENBLADET)

“ Burnout has no intention of being a pleasant book, and it feels like a strong and true story.”
(Maria Årollilja Rø, ADRESSEAVISEN)

“This is a powerful and moving novel about bullying … What distinguishes this book is the intensity of its narration … Garté has done a good job, and he has written a book that has moved this reader.”
(Irene Gressli Haugen, FÆDRELANDSVENNEN)

“Garté deserves credit for his language. The descriptions are rich without being overloaded, the choice of words is often unexpected and innovative, without getting overly hip, the sentences are abrupt, without obstructing the flow.”
(Christian Nicolai Bjørke, VÅRT LAND)

”Raw and captivating from first-time novelist … it is easy to get carried away by a text as thoroughly well written as the one Garté presents with his first novel … Garté succeeds in grabbing our attention and pulling us along from one page to the next, employing black and burlesque humour, and dramatic, almost unbelievable episodes.”
(Rita Aarnes, TIDENS KRAV)

“With Garté’s future work as a writer in mind, people should take note of his name … He has a style of writing which has long been lacking in Norway … I give it my warmest recommendations.”
(Marius Hjeldnes, DRIVA)

First published: 2007 by Aschehoug Fiction

Tiger Garté: Bibliography and Biography