I was a Teenage Norwegian

Scandinavian Review, Winter 1997/1998

I Was a Teenage Norwegian

by Peter Dublin

New York: Press-Tige Publishing, 1997

358 pages. Illustrated. Paper. $10.95

This novel is a coming-of-age story set in a small Norwegian town in the early 1960s Based on the author's true life experiences, the first-person narrative describes what it was like to spend the last year of high school in Tromso, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The young protagonist sees the midnight sun, the mid-winter darkness and the Northern Lights. He picks potatoes, takes ferry rides and learns to tolerate cod liver oil. He experiences personal growth as he makes life-long friends and falls in love for the first time. During his year abroad, this American adolescent turns into a teenage Norwegian. His running account of daily life in northern Norway includes such details as jokes, pranks, silly stories, humorous incidents and anecdotes about difficult teachers. The story describes the pleasures and pitfalls of total immersion in a foreign environment at an impressionable age.