Translated by Deborah Dawkin
In Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, readers follow a man who wished not to be followed, a man who, after a series of personal and professional disasters, finds himself lying on a rain-soaked road in the desolate, treeless Faroe Islands, with a wad of bills in his pocket and no memory of how he got there. From there, Brage-Award-winning author and playwright Johan Harstad's debut novel—previously published to great success in eleven countries—tells the story of Mattias, a thirty-something gardener living in Stavanger, Norway, whose idol is Buzz Aldrin, second man on the moon: the man who was willing to stand in Neil Armstrong's shadow in order to work, diligently and humbly, for the success of the Apollo 11 mission.
Surrounded by a vivid and memorable cast of characters—aspiring pop musicians, Caribbean-obsessed psychologists, death-haunted photographers, girls who dream of anonymous men falling in love with them on bus trips, and even Buzz Aldrin himself, Mattias must come to the realization that he cannot always blend into the background.
Collected in
Literature in Translation
Born in Stravanger, Norway, in 1979, JOHAN HARSTAD’s acclaimed novels and short stories have been published in more than a eleven countries. His first work to appear in English, Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?, was included in Kirkus Reviews’ Best Fiction of 2011, as well as Electric Literature’s Most Beautiful Books of 2011. Harstad’s other work in English includes the young adult novel 172 Hours on the Moon. The winner of the prestigious Brage Award for Norwegian literature, Harstad is also a playwright, drummer, and graphic designer. He lives in Oslo.