Thomas Seeberg Torjussen

JUNK MALE

Tom is a lonely man who blames feminism for everything that is wrong with society — and with his own life. By day he works in his mother’s clothing store, and by night he spews venom and bile online. The worst of it is directed at the high-profile stand-up comedian Live, who eventually collapses under Tom’s relentless harassment.

When hackers expose Tom’s identity, he suddenly becomes the most hated man in the country. Forced to go into hiding, he shaves off his beard, dresses in women’s clothes, and is reborn as Berit. In this new role, he encounters a warmth and empathy he has never experienced before.

It is a burlesque and entertaining journey in which we follow Tom from a simple larva, through a grotesque butterfly, to something resembling a human being.

We also meet Tom’s neighbor Audun, an only seemingly modern father of young children, in a novel that plunges headfirst into debates about gender roles, loneliness, and masculine sexuality — and that gives a face to the thousands of anonymous haters we recognize from the dark corners of the internet and newspaper comment sections.

The novel is based on the TV-series Ølhunden Berit (A Better Man), written and directed by the author, so far sold to; Germany (ZDF), Denmark (DR), Sweden (SVT), Finland (YLE) and Iceland (RUV).