26 Small Novels

26 sad, twisted, mysterious and thoughtful tales about the coldness of a child and the knife of loneliness in your heart. About breaking up with a boy while on an escalator, about a blind piano tuner and about a wedding ring so big that the man wearing it has to sleep with his arm on the floor. About how much pain we can endure, and about life’s black holes.

The book also includes recipes for Telephone Cake, Midwife Cake, and Gazelle Horns. And drawings by the author.

Praise for 26 SMALL NOVELS:

“This autumn’s little charm bomb … [Tusvik} lets her characters have a bittersweet approach to life. The balance is difficult. Tusvik knows how to keep it, and supplies with her own illustrations”
(Aftenposten)

“A collection of enigmatic and fantastical pieces which will delight those who appreciate imagination “
(Bergens Tidende)

“Love, the relationship between man and woman, parents and children, characterise many of Tusvik’s 26 little pieces. So does death and the great questions of life in general … Tusvik’s texts are, for all their charm, exactly so eccentric that you rarely know exactly what to make of them … a playful, energetic project”
(Dagens Næringsliv)

“It’s always a joy to read Marit Tusvik … one hell of a rich and varied collection of short prose … a charming book and a beautiful publication. Here are fables, here are weird tales and absurd pieces … here are matter-of-factly, rough, masculine texts, distanced and naughtily witty fragments … The whole book can be enjoyed”
(Stavanger Aftenblad)

“26 lovely, little stories that hit you in the guts from the side … expressive, sensitive, funny, strange and sad … Almost unlike anything else you have read … Tusvik portrays situations in a beautiful and strange way … the often profound existential themes become amusing and surprising. There is a deep and well written thread here between the painful and the witty … It’s not often I read a collection of texts that both flirt and is cheeky with the reader at the same time”
6/6 (VG)

“Marit Tusvik is unpretentious, curious, quick to laugh. And so good. I like Marit Tusvik’s books so much. I like the fact that she does her own thing, in her own little corner of contemporary literature. I like her  unpretentious, almost giggling touch – and the seriousness that lies under. I like the examining, curious gaze she lets her characters look at the world with: sometimes skeptical, sometimes overbearing, sometimes enthusiastic. And I like the lightness with which she can describe even the most painful experiences”
(Klassekampen)

“stories to fall in love with. [Tusvik] uses simple words, but the way she puts them together is amazing … What she writes feels light as a feather, but often there is a darkness and a soreness that seeps in through cracks in the stories and out to the reader … These are stories you want to put away and pull out on a blue day, like a thick, warm pullover”
(Dagsavisen)

First published: 2011, Forlaget Oktober