Mysteries : A Novel

In a Norwegian coastal town, society's carefully woven threads begin to unravel when an unsettling stranger named Johan Nagel arrives. With an often brutal insight into human nature, Nagel draws out the townsfolk, exposing their darkest instincts and suppressed desires. At once arrogant and unassuming, righteous and depraved, Nagel seduces the entire community even as he turns it on its head—before disappearing as suddenly as he arrived.

“Mysteries is as immediate and haunting as last night's dreams (or nightmares).” —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times

“Hamsun, perhaps more than any other writer, prefigured the techniques and attitudes of modernism.” —Peter S. Prescott, Newsweek