Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson

Trond Sander has moved to a cabin to live out his retirement years.  It needs a lot of work but that is fine as he has nothing but time to fill.  He lives there with his dog and one neighbor, a man that he realizes is the younger brother of one of his childhood friends.  For Trond has moved back to the area where he spent his summers with his father as he became a young man.

As he looks back, the summer when he was fifteen is the one he thinks about most.  That was the summer he and his friend spent hours together, stealing rides from the neighbor's horses, fishing, swimming and getting into mischief.  It is the summer he is man enough to help his father cut a stand of timber and send it downriver to sell.  It is the summer he becomes aware of women and his response to them.  And it is the summer that he starts to realize that his father has many secrets, most of them related to World War II and his part in that conflict.

Per Petterson is a Norwegian novelist who writes of the lives there and the pain found in life.  He himself lost his family (mother, father, younger brother and niece) in a tragedy and this has shaped his writing.  This novel won the two most prestigious Norwegian literary awards and when translated to English it won the International Dublin Literary Award and was in the top 10 best books selected by the New York Times Book Review.  His look back at what events form us as individuals and the slow unfolding of the story make this book an instant classic and it is recommended for readers of literary fiction.