I Refuse

An Amazon Best Book of April 2015: A portrait of childhood friendship, family and loss by the award winning and best-selling author, Per Petterson. I Refuse is quiet and devastating, told with spare prose that whisks you back to childhood, when the whole world seeped in through your skin. After thirty five years of estrangement, childhood best friends Tommy and Jim unexpectedly encounter one another in middle age. What unfolds is the history of their friendship from their youthful antics in a small Norwegian town, to the dissolution of Tommy s family when the authorities separate him and his siblings, to a cold winter night on a frozen lake that forever changes their relationship. Haunting and stark, Petterson s passages linger: the tumult of Tommy s family being ripped apart is razor sharp and the crack in the ice reverberates long after you ve finished reading. I Refuse is a story of friendship that is familiar, psychologically charged and heartbreaking. --Al Woodworth