The stand-alone sequel to the award-winning novel Sixty Kilos of Sunshine. The story begins in Segulfjord in 1906. Gestur Eilifsson and his people move into an old turf house at Eyrin in Segulfjord. The herring-filled summers tumble by thanks to the Norwegians and the chaos that comes with them, but our story’s hero finds that the better times plod along far too slowly. He’s the 18-year-old breadwinner for a household of five in bitter poverty and life is a slog, but there are moments of brightness as well like the unexpected joy of love. He finally sees a way to a better life when the Norwegian herring kings sweep in with an offer to buy the old Skridujördin land.
With this book Hallgrimur Helgason continues to portray the peculiar journey of Icelanders from dank turf huts to electrified living rooms. The reader is whisked away into a dance on the herring pier under a churning rhythm that echoes in the mind long after the book is closed, as Helgason has, yet again, managed to create a spectacular work of art from the fate of the working poor at the outermost shores of the civilized world.
Like a Norwegian herring captain, Hallgrimur Helgason has discovered a gold mine where his relentless knack for fablemaking and his eye for the comical find deeper meaning than usual.
The Icelandic Literary Prize 2021
The Icelandic Booksellers’ Prize for Best Novel of 2021 (2nd place)
“Hallgrimur Helgason’s novel is an imposing, powerful and imaginative work, rendered with a pithy and inventive brilliance, that views through a satirical, hyperbolic lens a series of tragic events where life and death hang in the balance at every turn. … Sixty Kilos of Knockouts is an ambitious novel that engages with a reality where one’s fate is determined by one’s origins and external circumstances together with sheer luck, good and bad.”
CITATION FROM THE FINAL SELECTION COMMITTEE OF THE ICELANDIC LITERARY PRIZE 2021
“An epic masterpiece, reminiscent of the pioneers and most prominent names in novel art. [Helgason’s] grotesque boldness aligns him with François Rabelais, his restless inventiveness honors the model James Joyce, in his emphasis on place as a concentration of the world he has learned from Gabriel García Márquez among others, and through the combination of humor and seriousness, laughter and tears, he clearly manifests the legacy of his great countryman, Nobel laureate Halldór Laxness.”
ERIK SKYUM-NIELSEN, INFORMATION, DENMARK
“The author’s strengths are on full display in the dazzling and laconic world of the herring factory floor, where a nation’s first steps out of turf huts reflect the protagonist’s desire for a better life and independence. A fish factory waltz where humor and heartbreak come together in the ruthless onslaught of time. This doesn’t feel like a standalone sequel to the award-winning work, but rather stands entirely on its own two feet.”
CITATION FROM THE FIRST SELECTION COMMITTEE OF THE ICELANDIC LITERARY PRIZE 2021
“Sixty Kilos of Knockouts is a magnificent novel, a veritable smorgasbord of excellent storytelling.”
OLINA THORVARDARDOTTIR, FRETTABLADID DAILY
Four and a half stars of five possible
“Hallgrimur Helgason has certainly not let his fans down. His book Sixty Kilos of Knockouts is a followup to the award-winning Sixty Kilos of Sunshine (2018), which is no less brilliant.
…You can’t help but be dazzled by the work that went into this chronicle of an era. The road forward for Icelanders took them out of their turf huts into wood frame houses, and Hallgrimur truly hits his stride in portraying the journey.
…Hallgrimur has garnered well-deserved praise for his social commentary and the sometimes grim but always compelling pictures he paints of life in Segulfjördur/Siglufjördur at the beginning of the 20th century. Although these are truly brilliant portrayals of society, they are also portrayals of family life, of small human victories and defeats, not to mention Gestur’s own personal evolution. To my mind this is every bit as much a story of individuals. Gestur’s struggle with fatherhood in all its various forms is true to his childhood experience, which we learned about in the first book, and the speculations about his own paternity that pervaded his upbringing. These conflicts are no less dramatic in the personal sphere and must not be overlooked when sizing up Hallgrimur’s latest accomplishment. This is a love story, a coming-of-age story and a family drama as much as it is a story of a society, and the storms of the human soul along with its sunny days are something Hallgrimur manages to conjure up in this book with remarkable insight. Hallgrímur is an old-school author, reminiscent of Laxness, or even Dickens, of people who write large stories in every sense of the word and don’t hesitate to render the drama in lengthy, unbroken blocks of texts.
… This book is not a lesser work than its award-winning predecessor, and this series that Hallgrimur has begun is imbued with that quality that once you start, you can’t help but want to hear more.”
RAGNHEIDUR BIRGISDOTTIR, MORGUNBLADID DAILY
“…a huge array of characters and so fascinating… I find he really plays to his strengths in this format…
I enjoy this narrative voice as he penetrates Gestur’s innermost longings and desires…
I find it so enjoyable what he allows himself to do as a narrator…”
SUNNA DIS MASDOTTIR, KILJAN, NATIONAL TV
“One of our big name writers… this is a series of accounts, epic in its way… he really builds to full steam by the middle of the book and carries it through to the end…”
EGILL HELGASON, KILJAN, NATIONAL TV
“… full of spirit …”
THORGEIR TRYGGVASON, KILJAN, NATIONAL TV
“The style of the work is a rapid prose, really like a stormy sea… In truth it is reminiscent in many ways of Charles Dickens. But within the onslaught of physicality and the grotesque are echoes both of the renowned medieval novel by the French author Rabelais about the giant Gargantua, and of Hallgrimur’s previous works such as 101 Reykjavik. The book also evokes Icelandic literary tradition…
The work is crammed with little tales of the bizarre, and the main narrative, about Gestur, is gripping. And while there is plenty of poverty and adversity, the narrator cheers the reader with his humour and wordplay. The narrator is in fact very helpful, and the work is very accessible and comfortable in the sense that the reader gets to hear about the fate of all the characters they have taken a liking to. Thus the work fulfils all the requirements for a good book series – and at the end there is no doubt that the narrator intends to allow the reader to meet Gestur again in new adventures.”
ROSA M HJORVAR, BOKMENNTABORGIN.IS
“The joy of story-telling does not disappoint the reader in Sixty Kilos of Knockouts. It contains everything that can spice up a story: love, sex, politics, money, betrayal, struggle, a ship run ashore, murder and much more, that is woven together into Hallgrimur’s incredible narrative…”
LIFDU NUNA
