Girl on the No. 2 Bus to Birkelundstoppen
A compelling book, by the author of previous compelling titles.
The Girl on the No. 2 Bus to Birkelundstoppen, by Knut Ove Knutson Midnight Thrillers, 1328 pp, 452kr, December 2018
Man! Knut Ove Knutson is a machine. The No. 2 Bus to Birkelundstoppen is also a machine, although its passengers are anything but mechanical.
Girl on the No. 2 Bus to Birkelundstoppen is the third in the groundbreaking series of Girl novels, with which Knutson is revolutionising Norwegian literature. The eponymous Girl, riding to Birkelundstoppen for reasons that remain ambiguous, only arrives on the bus at Bolstad... but by the time the passengers disembark at Birkelundstoppen, their lives have been changed forever. Admittedly, I found my interest waning around the middle of page 1312, but in every other regard this book was a showstopper as well as a doorstopper.
Knut Ove Knutson has distinguished himself among crime novelists for tightly wrought yet really long novels, and his inarguably accurate portrayals of broken and yet entirely recognisable characters. Who among us does not have or know a grandmother who shoots up meth on the No. 2 bus to Birkelundstoppen – but only as a coping mechanism for her grief? Who would fail to recognise the broken-spirited middle-aged man shivering inside his shroud-like Brann scarf? Who does not recall the surge of hope as the bus swoops up the hill from Haukeland, or the plunge of despair as it swings back down towards the concrete wastelands of Landåstorget?
Knutson paints these familiar faces and familiar places in an utterly unfamiliar palette of astonishing richness. This is a compelling book.