2020
The drum set stands ready on the stage. The drummer is Leon Borg. He has been consigned to the dustbin of history. This is his last concert, only he doesn’t know it. Rebecca Bratberg didn’t want to divorce her husband. But she did want to run off with someone else. Now she is finally with him. He is a construction worker, has been for many years. His helmet is shaped like a cowboy hat, and he wants to be buried in his lunchbox. His lunchbox is made out of sheet metal.
Levi Henriksen is back with short stories about people in their everyday lives, their struggles, and their loves. The people we meet here have been moulded by the lessons life has given them. They have wagered, winning some, losing some. Common to all of them is that they still feel the inner warmth for all that is no more. Iron & Metal is Levi Henriksen’s first short story collection in nine years.
Adept and penetrating [...] A great distance separates those writing novels here in this country, and an even greater distance separating those who understand the art of it. Levi Henriksen is one of them.
Magnificent penmanship [...] In this country we would probably have to go all the way back to 1885 and Amalie Skram’s novella Karens jul to find a Christmas tale of the same calibre as Levi Henriksen’s Christmas stories.
At his best there is a particular tenderness and warmth throughout Levi Henriksen, with a cast of characters one can believe in.
In Iron & Metal, Henriksen has his usual strong moments as a wordsmith: “The blows that don’t arrive are always worse than those that do,” he writes at one point, and one instantly recognises the insight in it
Levi Henriksen
Foto: Rolf M. Aagaard
