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The Orheim Company

Winner of the 2005 P2 Listeners' Novel Prize
Nominated to the 2005 Brage Prize for Best Norwegian Novel
More than 100.000 copies sold in Norway

Jarle is 24 when one night a phone call rouses him from his drunken sleep. It is his mother, telling him that his father is dead. Instead of sadness, Jarle is filled with only with anger and a sense of relief.

Two decades earlier, everything looked good for the small nuclear family - the Orheim Company - who moved into a terrace house in Norway’s oil capital Stavanger. As Jarle grows up, he possesses an enormous will to make the best of his world: He falls violently in love with girls, becomes an anti-racist and a feminist; and pop music is constantly playing in his head. But one day Jarle changes his last name. He no longer wants to be Jarle Orheim; from now on his name is Jarle Klepp. What happened to the Orheim Company? Why was it that those who wanted only the best for one another, ended up doing each other harm?

The Orheim Company is the second book in the series of free standing novels about Jarle. The other books are THE MAN WHO LOVED YNGVE and CHARLOTTE ISABEL HANSEN.

Click here for English sample translation.

Praise for The Orheim Company:

"… another remarkable Norwegian coming-of-age and generation-defining novel of family secrets in the 80s … The grandiose project could be placed somewhere between Lars Saabye Christensen’s and Per Petterson’s psychologically and language-wise very different but still, as generational mirrors, related novels."
(Politiken, Denmark)

"The novel’s easy-flowing stream of thoughts, dialogue, descriptions and action, its generous sharing of the thoughts of all its characters and its humorous and melancholic story make The Orheim Company into a solid, gripping novel about surviving the loss of a father."
(Jyllands-posten, Denmark)

"Finally, Renberg!... a page-turner, well told and well constructed... exceeding all expectations... Renberg’s best. We will be waiting impatiently for the third book about Jarle"
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

" an entertaining and inviting novel, which also offers insights about what being human entails"
(NRK)

"...touchingly emphatic.... well-written, and more than a little intelligent"
(Dagens Næringsliv)

"believable, gripping and essential... Renberg has [...] found his force, which is the personal narrative... an important book"
(Klassekampen)

” The Orheim Company is marked by a magnificient soreness… The descriptions are merciless, the characters accurate,and the story itself quite intelligent”
(Haugesunds Avis)

"Renberg reaffirms his strength as a writer... He is an expert at building characters... And he is obviously an author who will attract many readers"
(Dagbladet)

"With The Orheim Company Tore Renberg continues his exploration of the vulnerability and exposure attached to growing up in a world that does not always agree with one’s expectations. The novel distinguishes itself with a good insight into human relations. The main character Jarle Klepp is portrayed with tenderness and sensitivity, and has become a distinct and authentic figure in Norwegian contemporary literature"
(The jury’s grounds for the Brage Prize nomination)

Extract from the book:
"It is early summer. Jarle has gone to bed. He has checked the list. The pencil, the rubber, the pencil sharpener. He has stretched his sheet twice. He has felt the lump in his throat. Now he just lies there, gritting his teeth. It is Friday night. He is supposed to sleep now. Not lying here, tossing and turning in bed. He is tired. The voices from the living room have gone quiet, the house is silent. He has listened to the radio, very quietly, recorded some songs that he likes. One by Howard Jones, one by The Cars. He hopes this night will be a quiet one. That dad will be able to sleep, that he won’t be walking back and forth across the floor. That he won’t turn on the stereo in the living-room, like he has lately, in the middle of the night.

He can hear steps. First he thinks they are out in the hall, but then he realises they are right here, in his room. That someone is walking across his floor. He is too scared to open his eyes."

First published: 2005, Forlaget Oktober
Tore Renberg: Biography and bibliography

Film option sold to Motlys.

Rights sold to