The Black Signs

by Lars Mørch Finborud, Becky L. Crook

A gravel path stops at the doorstep of an extraordinary house which is completely crammed with piles of black signs, memorial plaques dedicated to inconsequential, horrible or forgotten events – documentation of a hidden reality – an unprecedented project on a huge scale. The solicitor who has been engaged to handle the estate comes across a protocol containing passionate letters addressed to a mysterious friend. Stuck in between the letters he also finds remnants of a catalogue listing nigh on eight million items – relics and collectors’ objects from the history of modern art. Each item has been auctioned. What follows soon adds up to an incredible and at times ambiguously dazzling tale that is at once unique and yet truly of our time.
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Nominated for the Young People's Critics' Prize in Norway 2013
Critical acclaim:
"An unusually powerful first novel"
Morgenbladet
"I praised Finborud's debut when it was published this spring, and I'm still full of praise. Here we meet among others a fairly eccentric grandmother, two young men, millions of black signs, jutegnask from the history of art and a lawyer who tries to weave this mess into a story"
Thea Urdal, Books of the year 2013, Dagsavisen
"This is a literary debut different from all the others and I am impressed and at the same time wondering if he is fucking us up? The Black Signs is a novel that involves the reader and offers no straight answers. It is very original and highly welcome! I want more!"
Aftenposten
"Lars Mørch Finborud introduces himself with a bang, with this absurd and cunning first novel."
Dagbladet
"He paints a story so quaint, absurd and tragicomic that you can't help hoping that Finborud will write more - and do so quickly"
Dagsavisen
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Lars Mørch Finborud was born in Oslo in 1980. In 2013 he published his first novel The Blacks Signs to great acclaim. This was followed in 2014 with the collection of essays, poems and short stories Sanding Down Gravestones. He has a degree in art history and works as a curator at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter. Finborud runs the record companies Plastic Strip Press and Prisma Records, and in recent years he has written on a regular basis for the literary magazine Vinduet and Morgenbladet. He has also published art historical books on Bauhaus, Christopher Nielsen, Arne Nordheim and performance art.

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Egil St1Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mystisk, gøyal og utradisjonell. Akkurat hva vi trenger som motvekt til "virkelighetslitteraturen", LitteraturNorges svar på reality-serier. Bravo!

[Håvard Bjørnelv · Rating 3 out of 5]

En historie om en mentalt antagelig svært forstyrret mann som arver et hus av sin bestemor. Bestemoren, som heller ikke ser ut til å ha vært helt tilregnelig, har etterlatt ham uante mengder "jutegnask", som viser seg å være en betegnelse for gjenstander som på en eller annen måte kan knyttes til mer eller mindre kjente personer. Eksempel på jutegnask kan være en kjent gitarists plekter eller en politikers brukte papirlommetørkle. Hovedpersonen bestemmer seg for å auksjonere bort jutegnasket for å finansiere sitt drømmeprosjekt, de svarte skiltene. Bortsett fra innledninga, som blir hengende litt i løse lufta, blir historien drevet framover (?) av en brevmonolog, hvor hovedpersonen henvender seg til en, muligens imaginær, venn, som aldri svarer. Boka er original og tidvis meget morsom, men framstår også som litt rotete og planløs. Helt grei lesning, uten at jeg nødvendigvis kommer til å kaste meg over seinere utgivelser fra samme forfatter.