The Pets

(Paperback)

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Description

A hilarious work of Icelandic fiction about a man trapped under his own bed while his arch-nemesis throws a party. Darkly funny and oddly charming, The Pets is the first novel by former member of Bjork's first band The Sugarcubes Bragi Olafsson to be translated into English. Dark and hilarious, the breezy style of The Pets belies its depth and disguises a complexity that increases with each page.

Reviews

"Icelandic novelist lafsson's English-language debut is part Beckettian or even Kafkaesque black comedy, part existentialist novel in the Paul Auster mode, and part locked-room mystery in which the murderee is alive and well and hiding in the bedroom ... Dark, strange, elusive, compelling and oddly charming."Kirkus Reviews "Delightfully funny and unexpectedly complex, The Pets introduces American readers to a fresh voice and perspective..."Larissa Kyzer, The L Magazine "The best short novel I've read this year ... Small, dark, and hard to put down, The Pets may be a classic in the literature of small enclosed spaces a distinguished genre that includes "The Metamorphosis," No Exit, and a fair amount of Beckett."Barnes and Noble Review "The Narrator ... is intelligent, often witty, a bit wounded ... in a word sympathetic. Overall, the book glitters and gleams, a clear, laughing glacial stream."Sean Lovelace, New Pages "The indispensable Rochester publisher Open Letter released Bragi's first novel rendered into English, The Pets, translated beautifully by Janice Balfour, in October of last year ... if you were building an argument for the true rock novel being as unselfconscious about rock as possible, The Pets could be Exhibit A. More than most fiction that concerns itself with music, Bragi's novel captures the dark side of rockparanoia, fear, self-doubt and the cowardice that's sometimes, maybe often, the flip side of rock-star braggadocio."Michael Schaub, Los Angeles Times "Eminently readable, The Pets disguises some really interesting sociological questions in a clean, conversational prose style that is, at first glance, deceptively simple."Aaron Cance, Fiction Writers Review

Author Bio

Bragi lafsson is the author of several books of poetry and short stories, and four novels, including Time Off, which was nominated for the Icelandic Literature Prize in 1999 (as was The Pets), and Party Games, for which Bragi received the DV Cultural Prize in 2004. The Ambassador, available from Open Letter, was a finalist for the 2008 Nordic Literature Prize and received the Icelandic Bookseller's Award as best novel of the year. Bragi is one of the founders of the publishing company Smekkleysa (Bad Taste), and has translated Paul Auster's City of Glass into Icelandic. He is also a former bass player with The Sugarcubes, the internationally successful pop group that featured Bjrk as the lead vocalist. Janice Balfour studied literature and Italian at the University of Iceland. In addition to Bragi lafsson, she has translated two collections of short stories by Gydir Elasson.