AshehougAgency

kockmania inc.

"On Sunday I go to Therese to lick my wounds… Therese is dull and boring and Norwegian and a single mother of a 15-month old boy who worships me. I personally can’t stand kids. Officially, I try to act completely neutral towards them (as towards everyone else). Therese might think I like her little brat. But I don’t. I hate him as much as KOCK hates Therese and Therese hates KOCK. RECIPROCITY IS A GOOD THING IN ANY RELATIONSHIP.

The first time I met Therese was many years ago. We knew each other long before KOCK or THE PAKIS or anything came along….

When Therese went from being a student living in a run-down flat with other students at BISLETT to moving into the flat at TORSHOV, I had already been fucking her regularly for a couple of years. At that time I saw her nearly every day. But as I said that was before I met KOCK. Now KOCK and I see each other at least every second day, while I can’t stand having anything to do with Therese more than once a week. MAXIMUM! Therese is desparate. It’s a goddamn TURN OFF! I only like girls I can’t have. The more unapproachable they are, the better. BILLING keeps asking me why I believe ”this to be the case”; he asks me to think it through thorougly; to examine myself. But I always give him the same answer. BECAUSE THEY’RE HOTTER! Quite simply. Therese isn’t very HOT. She never was. The fact that she’s now given birth to a kid, doesn’t make things better. But she’s warm - and she breathes"

The novel is narrated by Mathias, 28 years of age and at odds with his family, his girlfriend and a bunch of Pakistanis he and his friend KOCK owe money. At a high pace, with great force and a surprising sense of humour, V.S. Tideman depicts a young man finding absolutely no meaning of existence.

Praise for kockmania inc.:

"The brutally authentic prose has an ambiguous distance opaque enough not to explain the inexplicable, giving me, for one, the feeling of being inside a self declared asshole. … a pitch-black, devilish and very good first novel."
(Dagbladet)

”A first novelist with excellent night vision … fast and raw stories from contemporary Norway’s underbelly, drenched in capital letters and references”
(Aftenposten)

“high tempo and energetic prose, a cheeky and speed-addled book, hyperactive, hard hitting and right to the heart of the matter … a good first novel, which will be especially appealing to younger readers.”
(Dag og tid)

”… an intense and darkly humorous story … which at a furious tempo has something important to say about the human condition in a society which mistakenly believes that material wealth can be translated into mental, spiritual capital.”
(NRK)

First published: 2009, Forlaget Oktober
V.S. Tideman: Biography and bibliography.