Jan Erik Svendsen/For The Washington Post - Writer Jo Nesbo at his house in Oslo, Norway.
It was during his touring days that a friend at a publishing house contacted him: With the success he’d had with lyrics, perhaps he might want to try his hand at another form of writing? Nesbo gave himself five weeks to write a novel, choosing the crime genre because he liked the structure. He ended up with Harry Hole.
“I found it quite easy,” he says. “In crime, you have this intimate conversation with the reader,” both obeying the laws of the genre.
“The Snowman,” by Jo Nesbo.
His apartment is littered with remnants of these former lives: a keyboard and guitar set up in a corner (he still performs 50 or 60 gigs a year) and an indoor rock-climbing wall snaking up the side of his office, a shrine to continued athleticism.
A few years ago, he took up the unlikeliest of projects when he began penning a children’s series about an absentminded professor named Doktor Proktor. “It was really for the worst reason,” he says. He has a daughter, who is now 11 (he and the girl’s mother are not married), and he thought it would be fun to write down some of the bedtime stories they made up together. “When you’re an established name, you know that a children’s book will have a pretty good chance of getting picked up. Like Madonna. It’s not that I had this great idea.”
He pauses, considering something.
“Actually, in my case, it was a great idea.”
Coming into his own
A phone call. Nesbo pauses his cider-drinking to answer. It was, he explains later, a Norwegian reality show. The host moves in with a different Norwegian celebrity every week; the producers want to know if she can move in with Nesbo next. He declines.
It’s a typical request as of late. It’s one thing to be famous in a country so intimate that morning walkers can dawdle on the lawn of the Oslo palace that houses King Harald V. It’s another to go global. For years, Nesbo turned down bids to option his books for the movies. Film is such a definitive medium, he says. “I’d rather have 1,000 different Harrys in the mind of my readers” than one chosen by a production company. Recently, though, he’s agreed to sell the rights for “The Snowman” to Working Title.
He’s been asked to write a new Doktor Proktor installment, and he’s working on developing a television series — the storyboards cover one wall of his dining area — though he won’t say what it’s about.
When told that about the London marketing ploy — the stickers with the Stieg Larsson prompt — he laughs. “Now that the book is number one in the U.K., they won’t have to use that anymore.”
Maybe, he muses, someone can create a new sticker to slap on the cover of the next Scandi-crime sensation. “Read this,” it will say, “if you like Jo Nesbo.”
Harrowing “’The Watch Tower” sets tone for a new series devoted to key works of Australian writers.
1371681840000
Anton DiSclafani’s first novel is a 20th-century gothic tale that reads like a lusty cousin of “Jane Eyre.”
1371590136000Exile, piety and battles in “Gameboard of the Gods,” “Bristol House” and “Abaddon’s Gate.”
1371587760000
William Stout’s illustrations, accompanied by text, capture the spirit of the artists and their music.
1371586439000
Patrick Ryan, formerly of Granta magazine, will take over the monthly magazine of short fiction for young people.
1371561851000
Detective Constable Lacey Flint must stop a serial killer who’s draining the blood from young boys in London.
1371504540000
John Taliaferro will discuss his biography of John Hay on June 27.
1371476780000
“The Ocean at the End of the Lane” is a beautifully crafted novel about the longing for home.
1371422825000
Mr. Kaniuk was a member of Israel’s founding generation who abhorred religion’s influence over the state.
1371417840000
In “Cool War,” Noah Feldman assesses the power struggle between China and the United States.
1371246719000The books Washington has been reading.
1371246484000
In “Marathon Man” Bill Rodgers recounts his running life and winning the 1975 Boston Marathon
1371246291000
In “Second Suns,” David Oliver Relin describes two doctors’ efforts to treat cataracts in Nepal.
1371245944000
Susan Dunn looks at what may be the most consequential election of the 20th Century
1371245774000The Post Most: EntertainmentMost-viewed stories,videos, and galleries in the past two hours
Loading...
Comments