Viking Magazine - February 2015 - 46

Q&A
No Ordinary Crime Fiction
M
ost Nordic crime
fi ction is set in the
Nordic countries.
Not so with three novels by
Norwegian author Vidar
Sundstøl, who lived with his
wife on the North Shore of
Lake Superior for two years
while she worked as a forest
researcher. Sundstøl's characters
are mainly Scandinavian
Americans, sometimes propelled
and sometimes swallowed by
the dreams of the immigrants
in their past. Volume one,
" Drømmenes Land " or " Land
of Dreams, " earned Norway's
Riverton Prize for best crime
fi ction in 2008. Sundstøl will
tour the Midwest this spring
to talk about volume two, just
released in English translation
last October, and a translated
volume three due out in April.
Q What made you want to
write a story set in the
United States?
A One thing was a photo that
hung in a house we rented. It
showed the old wharf outside of
the Bluefi n Bay Hotel on Lake
Superior, this big modern hotel
and then the broken vertebrae
of stones lying there. I looked
at that so many times and
thought of all the hardship that
lay behind those stones and all
the dreams of the Norwegian
immigrants who built that
fi rst stone wharf. There was
46 VIKING FEBRUARY 2015
Author Vidar Sundstøl's Minnesota Trilogy combines immigrant
stories with murder mystery and Great Lakes history.
BY DENISE LOGELAND
something sad about it, but also
a certain beauty in it. Another
thing was the lake. When I saw
it the fi rst time it made a deep
impression on me, the great
vast nothingness.
Q Why are you intrigued by
immigrant stories?
A I am very caught up in the
past and extremely interested
in history, especially antiquity
and Roman and Greek history.
But it was easy for me to be
fascinated also by the history
of the immigrants and Ojibwe
and fur traders in Minnesota.
I'm fascinated by what has been,
what can never come back.
Q Lance Hansen, the U.S.
Forest Service investigator
in your books, wants to fi nd
the truth not just about the
present-day murder but
about his family's past. Why
does family history matter so
much to them?
A The Norwegian American
connection means so much on
both sides, it means a lot in
Norway, too. But there's a big
difference between coming from
somewhere, like Norwegian
Americans have the sense that
they come from Norway, and
knowing that people in your
family several generations
back went somewhere. On the
Norwegian side, it's not
about belonging.
sonsofnorway.com
Q You wrote these books
several years ago. What's
happening with Nordic crime
fi ction now? Has it topped
out as a trend?
A It's the same thing that
happens with trends in music,
for instance. New trends are
always very dynamic in the
beginning. As soon as it becomes
lucrative, then it naturally
starts to repeat itself. I'm not
saying that all the new writers
are rubbish, but the trend has
reached a certain point where
there is a lot of reproduction
being done. The best work
is about building a literary
universe. Jo Nesbø has done that
with his books, especially the
ones from around the year 2000.
Karin Fossum goes deep into the
psychology of crime. She writes
about that much more than
about the actual solving of the
crimes. So there's a reason why
these people became famous.
Name: Vidar
Sundstøl
Born: 1963
Current city:
Bø in Telemark
Minnesota
Trilogy Series:
" Land of Dreams, "
2013 (Drømmenes
Land, 2008)
" Only the Dead, " 2014
(De Døde, 2009)
" The Ravens, " 2015
(Ravnene, 2011)
Keep an eye on
Sundstøl's upcoming
tour schedule at
upress.umn.edu.
PHOTO BY PAAL AUDESTAD
http://upress.umn.edu http://www.sonsofnorway.com
Viking Magazine - February 2015

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