Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad

Idolizing Buzz Aldrin, the second man on the moon, Mattias only wants to “be a smooth running cog in the world. He loves his job as a gardener at a local nursery-so much that he often comes in early to just sit in the quiet of the garden alone. He loves his girlfriend, Helle, who he has dated for twelve years. When we meet 29-year-old Mattias, the narrator of Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, he is happy and satisfied with his life.

She has an interest in all things Scandinavian, which is one reason why it makes sense that she’d be writing about this book. _Today’s post is by Larissa Kyzer, a regular reviewer for Three Percent and L Magazine. Why This Book Should Win: Reasons 1-5 listed below. We’ll have a variety of guests writing these posts, all of which are centered around the question of “Why This Book Should Win.” Hopefully these are funny, accidental, entertaining, and informative posts that prompt you to read at least a few of these excellent works.Ĭlick here for all past and future posts in this series.īuzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad, translated by Deborah Dawkin

Surrounded by a vivid and memorable cast of characters-aspiring pop musicians, Caribbean-obsessed psychologists, death-haunted photographers, girls who dream of anonymous men falling in love with them on bus trips, and even Buzz Aldrin himself-'Harstad combines formal play and linguistic ferocity with a searing emotional directness' (Dedi Felman, Words Without Borders) to bring Mattias to the realization that he cannot always blend into the background.As with years past, we’re going to spend the next two weeks highlighting the rest of the 25 titles on the BTBA fiction longlist. he novel's finest moments wrap you up in communion with Mattias, as if you are spending a quiet afternoon with an old friend, chatting but mostly thinking' ( Three Percent). Through Harstad's 'delectably light but nonetheless impactful prose. From there, Brage Award-winning author and playwright Johan Harstad's debut novel-previously published to great success in eleven countries with its first English-language appearance in June 2011-tells the story of Mattias, a thirty-something gardener living in Stavanger, Norway, whose idol is Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon: the man who was willing to stand in Neil Armstrong's shadow in order to work, diligently and humbly, for the success of the Apollo 11 mission. In Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, readers follow a man who wishes not to be followed, a man who, after a series of personal and professional disasters, finds himself lying on a rain-soaked road in the desolate, treeless Faroe Islands, population only a few thousand, a wad of bills in his pocket and no memory of how he had come to be there.

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion? by Johan Harstad