Per Petterson’s “To Siberia”
Graywolf Press, 2008
In 2007 Per Petterson had his second publication in the United States: a short, unostentatious, and penetrating novel entitled
Out Stealing Horses. It was a surprising commercial and critical success, propelled in no small part by Thomas McGuane s feature-length review in the
New York Times Book Review that coincided with the novel s release. McGuane s review is itself a sort of masterpiece, establishing subtle continuities between Petterson s Norway and the American literary landscape. Its opening paragraph ends with a bold statement about Trond Sander, the narrator of
Out Stealing Horses: he is more like us than other Scandinavian protagonists.