Echoland - Hardcover

"A compelling mix of fable with the day-to-day account of a working-class boy... It is hard to think of a novel that so precisely and vividly conveys the pain and disorientation of puberty" (John Burnside Guardian)

"Is there a living writer better at conveying the disconcerting relationship between time and memory?... There is pleasure, too, in watching Petterson shift through the gears from pleasure to unease in one of those gloriously sinuous sentences that have become something of a trademark" (Adrian Turpin Financial Times)

"Petterson is remarkably gifted" (James Wood New Yorker)

"It packs a powerful punch... A clear-cut jewel of nameless dread and nagging anxiety: Scandinavian gloom par excellence." (Andrew Van Loon Sunday Telegraph)

"His eerily terse prose luxuriates in the hazy strangeness of the Danish landscape and is particularly brilliant at nailing adolescence as an inchoate, restless state in which life is felt much more fiercely than it is understood." (Claire Allfree Mail on Sunday)

Twelve-year-old Arvid and his family are on holiday, staying with his grandparents in Denmark. Confused by the underlying tension between his mother and grandmother, Arvid is grappling with his own sense of self. He’s on the cusp of becoming a teenager, feeling awkward in his own skin.

As Arvid cycles around town, down to the beach with its view of the lighthouse, his new-found freedom fuels his desire to experience life.

Echoland is a subtle and truthful snapshot of growing up, with an emotional depth that lingers long after its final pages.