Doghead

Description

From a fiery and humorous Danish John Irving, a bighearted, epic story of mad dogs, naughty boys, strange relatives and family secrets. Naughty Boys.Dirty Secrets.Mad Dogs. In the Eriksson family, childhood is a shocking experience, full of crude and disturbing rites of passage. It all started with Askild 'the Crackpot', chased by bloodhounds on a German plain after escaping from a Nazi concentration camp.His son, Niels 'Jug Ears' Junior, is born in an outhouse, and wins respect by kicking other boys in the balls. And his son, Asger 'the Liar', collects stories about his shipwrecked family which are always exciting though not entirely true. He is haunted by the time he spent hidden in the space under the stairs with his fat aunt, aka 'the Little Bitch'. Unable to banish Doghead, a horror from his childhood, to the shadow realm, he reveals the very bad deeds children can do - to push his family story forward, past a point of no return. Doghead is a richly imaginative farcical tragedy; a witty saga of three generations of wild Eriksson men. It touches on chilling themes - concentration camps, child abuse, alcoholism, rape - yet warmly celebrates the stories that hold families together.

Morten Ramsland, born in 1971, has a degree in Danish and Art History. He is married, with a young son and daughter. Doghead is his first book to be published in English. It became a huge bestseller in Denmark, where he won Author of the Year, Book of the Year, the Reader's Prize and the most prestigious prize for literature, the Golden Laurel Prize.