In the Wake

At times unbearably moving, In the Wake is a powerful and heart-rending novel based on Per Petterson’s personal tragedy of losing many of his family in the sinking of the Estonia.


From the Hardcover edition.
When Arvid Jansen comes-to one morning in the doorway of a bookstore in Oslo, Norway, his grief comes back to him in devastating flashes: His parents and his brothers are dead, he has lost touch with his wife and daughters, abandoned his career as a writer and bookseller. His old life is gone.

In the Wake is the story of Arvid's first steps toward resuming that life, of his gradual confrontation with everything he lost and ultimately with his own role in the disaster that killed his family.

Told with the insight and moral force of his countryman Knut Hamsun, In the Wake is the American debut of a treasured European writer. 

Author: Per Petterson

Publisher: Vintage

Released Date: 2007

ISBN: 9780099520740