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- [00:01]
A
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- [00:35]
B
Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network. And today I'm here with Joe Nesbo, who is the author of Wolf Hour. Joe, thanks for being here with me today.
- [00:44]
A
Thanks for having me.
- [00:46]
B
Could you start out by giving a little bit of a synopsis about what your latest book is about?
- [00:51]
A
Oh, I, you know, as an, as a writer I should. I've been used to that. Not by now. To give a synopsis of your novels. I hate giving those kinds of synopsis. I'm not really good at it. I'll try to give you an idea of the main character. It's Bob Oss, who is a detective in Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has his grandparents, Norwegians. So he has this, these Scandinavian Norwegian roots which play into the story because it is in many ways an outsiders look at America and at Minnesota and at presidental elections, at gun laws, at violence in general. But like from a Scandinavian point of view. Now he, Bob, okay, he's his loner, is generally hated by everybody, including his colleagues or especially his colleagues. He is a coward. He is not. He's definitely not good looking and he's got maybe a little charm, but not a lot of charm. And he's not even very smart. I mean he's not dumb, but he's like a mediocre detective. And my first job as a writer is to present him to you and make you not, not hate him, but despise him in a way and then hopefully gradually get the readers over to his side, which is a quite tough job in this case with bubbles.
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B
So you are Norwegian, you're a Norwegian author. So you usually and many of your books have been translated into English, but this is the first book I think that takes wholly takes place in the United States. Correct?
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A
Yeah.
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B
So can you talk about like that decision, like why did you decide to come to the United. Have your character come to the United States and base it in the U.S.
- [03:20]
A
it's because I grew up in the United States in a way, living in Norway, because my father grew up in the United States and then came back to Norway with my Grandparents who had been living there for my grandmother for most of her life. So it was always American culture, American literature and music in my home when I was. I grew up, and I think it was my. My father's dream was always to. To take the family back to the United States. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. But since I was in my 20s, I've been traveling a lot in the United States. I. I would guess I've been to more American states than the average American and, you know, accumulated it. I. I don't know how much time I spent in the United States, but we're talking years. And of course, Minnesota is the state in the United States that has the most Scandinavian immigrants. And coming there, it was in a way, like coming to Norway. Not the Norway I lived in, but it was like going into a time machine. And it was Norway 30 or 50 years ago. Then I sort of kept up the traditions that had long ago been forgotten in Norway and the food and, you know, it was an interesting place. So I. It was. I decided that, okay, it's time to do what I did in my first Harryhool books, which is traveling to different country and given outsiders look at the society. Actually, that is what I've been doing in my novels that has taken place in Norway also, is that I tend to pick out whether it's the Salvation army or the police corps, and to have that outsiders look at something at the society, at the organization, how things work. But then again, I mean, it's. In my case, it's probably an informed, more than average, informed outsider having a look at the United States. And of course, you can't sum up a country in a book. It will have to be at the city and at the part of the population of that city that I have partly researched and that I partly imagine. After all, it's a book of fiction. But it was just that Minnesota suited the kind of story I wanted to tell.
- [06:17]
B
Yeah. And I will say someone who grew up in Minnesota and I lived in Norway for a year, but don't have. I don't. I don't speak Norwegian. My children do. But what you said about Norway and how, like when I was in Norway and I'd ask students, I went around and talked to students, I'd ask them questions and they'd be like, we don't do that. Like, But I'm like, well, they do in the U.S. like, Norwegian immigrants to the U.S. do that all the time. They know what those things they eat. Lafse and lutefisk and all that. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about that research that you did for this then? I know that the justice system, the police system is very different in the United States than in Norway, as well as sort of gun laws and that kind of thing which, all of which you mentioned. So can you talk a little bit about that kind of research and thinking about how you got into bringing that into your novel?
- [07:13]
A
I've been visiting Minneapolis over the years, but when I was starting doing research for Wolfhour, I stayed there and I had some very helpful guides took me around the city. I already had like a skeleton or synopsis for the story. I, I knew exactly what I was looking for. So the research process was very efficient and we, we actually got into, into trouble at one point. It was, I was going to, to, to look at one of the famous shopping malls and actually the first shopping mall in the, in the United States and in the world where I was having the killer that the police is hunting, he's at the top of a parking house and he's shooting one of his victims as he gets into the car at the parking lot. And we were out there and there were some nurses, they were on strike actually, outside the hospital next to the parking house. And I went up to them and asked, you know, is it possible to, to, for anyone to drive into that parking house or is it closed or how do you get into it? And they explained it to me and they say why? And I said, no, it's, I'm a crime rider. So I, I, I'm having someone at the top of that parking house shooting someone in the parking lot. And I didn't see any reaction right there. And then, I mean, if I had asked that question in, in Norway, they would have bought it at face value. You know, they wouldn't have doubted that that was actually the case. But in this case, as we drove away, the nurses, they took the license plate of our car with it to local teachers who were my guides, and we were stopped. Later in the day, I think was just outside the Prince studio in Minneapolis and it was the police, and it turned out that they had been alarmed and it was, they thought it or they didn't think, but they had to check out whether this was a terrorist, you know, driving around the Minneapolis and planning to shoot people. So they had actually, according to the police, they had alarmed the governor even. So it was like a huge thing. But at the time when they finally found us, they had Googled me. So they had, you know, so they had checked out and understood that it was actually I told the truth. Probably.
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B
Probably they knew you were legit.
- [10:17]
A
They told me never do that again. Never do that again. Not don't tell people you planning to shoot people.
- [10:24]
B
That sounds about right. Did you, did you decide like it start, it takes place and it jumps back and forth between 2016 and 2022. Did you know right away that you were going to put it in 2016 or because of what was going on with the elections and all of that? Like that. Was that the choice. Can you talk a little bit about that choice of sort of your timeline?
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, Well, I think that that was probably a, in many ways like a dramatic turning point in not only in American politics and American society, but also internationally. It was like something happened with a zeitgeist when Donald Trump was. Was elected. It was like a world was rested, sure that the Democrats would win the election and that Hillary Clinton would be the first female president in the United States. So when I woke up in the morning and I realized that that hadn't happened, that the unthinkable happened, that the majority of the American voters had voted for Donald Trump, it was such a shock to me and I think to most of the world that it was. We knew right away that, okay, so something different is going to happen now. The world is not going to go on the way we it would. So it was. I put a story in that period just before that election, build up to that election. And of course, what probably differs American society from most other societies in, in the, in the Western sphere is, is violence. I think it's. If you look at American history, violence has always been there and to a bigger degree than most people realize. Coming there, I was sort of unprepared for to what extent violence is part of American daily life, how it, you know, is there in the, in the planning of every everyday life, that is something that you have to take into account. And when crossing the border to Canada, where I also have been traveling and spending time, it's like having crossed an ocean and landed in a totally different world. And so it is that, of course, violence and gun laws are part of the story, but then again, it's. Instead of just trying to condemn the way Americans look at the right to use guns, you have to understand it. You have to. I mean, it's been dictated by history. It's not like I don't believe that Americans are fundamentally different from people anywhere else. I mean, given the same history in Norway, we would have had the same gun laws. So I'm Trying to, to tell a story where you give reasons for why. For some people, guns are not a way to, to dominate and to be violence, but it's also a way to defend themselves in some situation where the gun is like there's a. There's a young girl growing up in the southern parts in, in Chicago and with a violent father, and the gun under her pillow is her only defense. So, like I do in most of my stories, I'm. I'm trying to tell the, the story from, from different points of view. Close your eyes, exhale, Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today.
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C
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A
And breathe.
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C
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- [14:38]
B
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- [14:40]
C
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- [15:10]
B
Yeah, I think the I, I found the gun law, the gun sort of aspect really interesting, right? It was really interesting for me because there are so many different we approach like people just can have a gun, right? And even when I was like in Norway, it's often like if you have a gun, you have a purpose for having that gun, right? You're going to use it to hunt, you're going to use it. And here we sometimes collect guns like. So one of the parts of one of the threads in here is like the NRA is having a big event and another threat is sort of like the illegal buying and selling of guns. So yeah, we have a very different view of who gets to own a gun and why you get to own a gun than I think anywhere, most anywhere else in the world.
- [15:57]
A
Yeah. Yeah, Well, I think so. And it's the question for outsiders like myself and, and, and most people in Scandinavia for example, is why have so many guns? You're allowed to. But. But why do you. Why do we. And it's like you get the impression that a high percentage of Americans are sort of doomsday preppers and there's a lack of trust of your neighbors in the United States, which is in Scandinavia. It's totally different. And it's bordering on being naive, of course, in Scandinavia. But on the other side, you haven't. You have a society where people, you know, they, they. They trust each other. And it has worked well for Scandinavia. But of course, over the last 20 years, things have changed in. In organized crime has play, are now playing a bigger part in. In. In Scandinavian countries than it did 20 years ago.
- [17:10]
B
So, you know, so let's talk a little bit more about Bob. Bob Oz. Because. So I was wondering, did you come to this book with the character? Like, when you go to write, do you come thinking, this is the character I want to write about and write around that character, or is it more about the place and the location? Can you talk a little bit about that sort of process of like bringing Bob to life?
- [17:35]
A
Well, it's interesting with characters because you can play, plan them, and I definitely plan my characters. But it's something that happens when you start, when you give them a voice and you give them a physical appearance, they tend to change in your mind when they walk and talk, that is, when you know the character. So actually I've learned that from experience. I have often planned characters that turn out totally different from what I had planned. And it has cost me problems. But so now I. I put in pieces of dialogue in my synopsis, and I did that with this character also. But then bubbles turn out much more funny, much more with a, you know, sense of dark humor. To larger extent that I planned so much of the story then started being about the character, of course, the murder case, the. The shooter, the mysterious shooter that he's chasing that leads him to this taxidermy shop where he meets another guy with Scandinavian background. And this taxidermy shop becomes sort of the. The. The. The Eye of the storm. It's his church. It's two lonely men that comes together and they start talking about their lives and about loneliness and about grieving. We learned that Bob Oster is a reason why he is this despicable person. He used to be called One Night Bob because he used to chat up women. It was actually good. That's the. Was the one thing he was good at. It was because he didn't have the looks. It didn't have the charm, but he was so persistent when he talked to women. But that, that is sort of, I think they sort of gave up and just let him, let him take them home. You know, anything to shut him up. He was a talker and. But then he met the love of his life and he became one woman, Bob. But now he has lost her and he's trying to get back to being one like Bob. It's only that he's, he's has gotten older and he's drinking too much and he's not as funny as he used to be and not as charming or I mean he wasn't that charming to begin with, but so, so he is, he's a loner by now. And that became like my favorite scenes, I call them scenes in my, in my story. Are these two men just, you know, in the pauses in the action in the Wolf hour, it's just two lonely men talking about life and death.
- [20:49]
B
Yes. And I will say you said at the beginning there's this point where you are like, who's this baba? We don't like Bob. And then there's a point where you're. Yes, I do actually like Bob and I'm rooting for Bob. So you mentioned the taxidermy shop and taxidermy. Was this something that you had to go out and research? Did you think I'm going to do something with taxidermy? Can you talk a little bit about that? Because it is kind of this really interesting and maybe dying art. So.
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A
Well, the reason why he's going there in the first place is that he finds a, a card, a business card at, at the shooter's apartment and that leads him to the taxidermy shop where he realizes that, okay, so, so the shooter is, is having his dead cat stuffed and he, so he is quite sure that he's going to return to this shop to pick up the work of the taxidermist. And it was because when I was in Minnesota or actually in Wisconsin on the, on the border, I walked into this taxidermy shop and it was, it was beautiful place. It was like walking into church. It was no, it was nobody there and it was just silent and it was this, you know, beautiful dead animals there like in like a graveyard. So it was in many ways like a church. And when the taxidermist came in, he was also this soft spoken guy working, you know, and, and it was like, yeah, a church or what do you call it? Funeral.
- [22:44]
B
Whole funeral parlor. Like a funeral parlor kind of.
- [22:47]
A
Yes, exactly. So it was I realized that, you know, why not have bubbles, like, going to confession, you know, and. And he was like the priest. And so. And then I started doing research when I realized that this is just. Just a, you know, beautiful setting. Horrible setting in one way, but beautiful because the story is, after all, about death and trying to preserve the lost ones.
- [23:25]
B
So your work, a lot of your work is like, we think we're headed in one direction, and then we head in, like, 15 different directions before we get to the end. Right. So do you plan that out? Like, is, when you write, do you have an idea of where you want your story to go? Is it something that sort of, like, flows with you? Can you talk a little bit about that process? Especially when you're thinking about crime writing and writing sort of mysteries in crime fiction?
- [23:54]
A
No, I'm. I'm. I typically. Not in all my novels, but in this one and in the Harry Hoole series, I write who's Done it stories. It is, you know, mysteries where you are given a chance to solve the mystery before it's revealed. And so I do. I do plan, definitely, and I spend probably as much time planning and writing synopsis as I do writing the actual novel. So when I write chapter one, I have the feeling I can tell my readers, you know, comes it closer, because I have this great story to tell you, and I know exactly where we're going. And the deal is that I'm not allowed to lie, but I am allowed to make you watch my right hand while I do the trick with the left hand. So if you pay attention, you may get the solution before it's presented to you. But then again, I do deviate from that plan. But I think for me, I mean, I grew up with my relatives, and they were. When we were gathered for Christmas holidays and so on, we would tell the same stories over and over again. Everybody knew the story. So it was about how you told the story. It was about how you got to the punchline more than the punchline itself. And so I realized that it's better to. And sometimes they would improvise, and sometimes the story would end up, you know, different than it did last Christmas. So that's my. You know, that's my writer's school sort of to have a plan and know where I'm going, but also having the license to deviate from that plan.
- [25:54]
B
So you write in Norwegian, I'm guessing. Do you ever read the. I mean, your books are translated into multiple languages, but do you ever read kind of the translations? Do you ever, like, sit down and read the English version of your books, or are you just like. Yep. Nope, I did.
- [26:09]
A
I actually did with my first novel, and I have. Then it was Don Bartlett who was the translator to English. And of course, the English translation is so important because Norway being such a small language, it's hard to find translators from, let's say, Norwegian to Korean, so they will have to use the English translation. But I also realized when reading the first couple of chapters that things will get lost in translation, especially humor. I think it's. But I also realized that I couldn't have done a better job with it myself than Don Bartlett did. So I decided that I should spare myself the frustration of seeing what would get lost. So since that I haven't read the translations.
- [27:07]
B
No, no. I always wonder about that, like, how that work, how people feel about maybe reading or not reading their translation. Because, yes, I could see many of the way in which things could get lost or change. So do you. What was I going to ask? How do you. Have you. The book's been out in Norway for a while, so I'm wondering about, like, if you've thought about or even pay attention to sort of reception of the story in Norway versus the potential reception of the story here in the story here in the United States, or if that's something you don't even think about because you are talking about sort of politics of our time, like politics in the U.S. gun violence, things like that
- [27:50]
A
in the U.S. well, I don't really think much about the reception. I write my novels basically for two friends of mine lives in Oslo with whom I share taste in popular culture. So I tend to write books that I probably would like to read myself. And, you know, even I can remember writing my first novel. I'm having my. My protagonist, Harry Houler, having sex with a prostitute in the. During the first couple of chapters in my first novel. And I, I realized, I realized then that if this get published, it probably won't even get published. But if it does, I lost my female readers there and then. But it seems to, I think that by now readers all over the world, they are so used to putting themselves into the shoes of someone from a different culture. I mean, we share so many references globally now, so much more than we did 50 years ago. So I think that I'm not trying to accommodate readers in other countries. I find that writing and telling stories is not about visiting people where you think they live, but it's about inviting them to your home and having them see where you live. And you decide what, what to eat, what music to play, what to talk about, what to drink and they're welcome in. And if they don't like it, they, there's, there's a lot of other places they can go to, but it's the only thing you have to offer is your own home, your own literary universe.
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B
I love that. I love that idea. So the book Wolf Hour is out in the US now. Any. My last question is always like anything you are now working on that you want people to know about or any promotion. Like, like, yeah, self promotion. Self plug. Yeah.
- [30:13]
A
Well, right now I'm working on a new novel in the HarryHooler series which is going to be exciting because on the 26th of March, Netflix is starting the HarryHooler show, which is going to premiere worldwide, nine episodes. So, and I've been a showrunner on that series. So that's what I've been working on for the last three years. So we're looking forward to that. It's going to be really exciting.
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B
So now I have to ask, is it going to be in English or is it in Norwegian with English subtitles?
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A
It's going to be in Norwegian. It's going to be in Oslo with the Norwegian actors with English subtitles.
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B
Oh, good. My children will be very happy. They are always looking for Norwegian shows to watch so that they can see in the US So they will be very happy again. Tusentak for talking with me again, Joe Nesbo about his latest book, Wolflower, for New Books Network.
- [31:30]
A
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