AshehougAgency

The Last Beast

Thomas Strand has published a very successful novel about a monkey named Adam, but he can’t come up with another good idea for a book. The summer is hot and seemingly eternal, and the outside world appears more and more misguided.

In a straightforward and compelling prose, Bård Torgersen creates a creeping sense of discomfort and a distinctive apocalyptic atmosphere. The world is about to fall apart—and it might already be too late.

Praise for The Last Beast:

”Pitch black, but convincing about destruction … Torgersen’s style is precise and scarce of words, chemically cleansed of any type of literal decorations. However there is an intensity and flow that takes it home. This is a novel which should stick with the reader, far beyond the few hours it takes to read it.”
(Bergens Tidende)

”[Torgersen] manages to intersperse sore observations, cutting remarks, humour and peculiarity into a few sentences. He obviously has a keen eye for details, and elegantly loads little everyday events with meaning.”
(ABC Nyheter)

”There is something sadly beautiful about Torgersen’s vision of the end of the world. It is portrayed not so much as a catastrophe as a necessity.”
(Stud Vest)

”Well-written about what happens when fear becomes reality … Don’t expect any moral or solution, be seductively unredeemed in a marvelling and possessing way.”
(Adresseavisen)

”A sarcastic and bitter showdown with modern man’s discontent, lack of will to take responsibility and insufficiency when it really matters. As a reader, you don’t get any ready-made morals; you get a story which at times is almost hypnotising.”
(Bergensavisen)

” The Last Beast manages something as rare as really sticking after you’ve finished … “
(VG)

”Catchy reading … An intriguing book by an author who makes a very interesting acquaintance”
(Avisa Nordland)

First Published: 2007, Forlaget Oktober
Bård Torgersen: Biography and bibliography