Stine Pilgaard’s "Wild Horses" pre-empted by Kagge in Norway

Stine Pilgaard ’s new novel, Wild Horses (Ti vilde heste, Gutkind), is already enjoying success – even before coming out in Danish on September 10th!

The novel was sold in a pre-empt to Norway’s Kagge Forlag just 24 hours after submitting the manuscript to Norwegian publishers.

“What a novel, and what extraordinary literary precision Stine has! I love her language and narrative voice: fresh, wise, biting, vulnerable, relatable, and honest – not to mention incredibly funny! The novel reminds me why I fell head over heels for The Land of Short Sentences in the first place, and why I had to go back and read her earlier novels only to fall even harder. Stine is truly one of a kind, unquestionably one of the strongest voices in the Nordic countries. We are absolutely certain that, with Wild Horses, Stine Pilgaard has done it again — written a tremendous novel that will stand the test of time and resonate with thousands of readers both in Denmark and abroad.”

- editor Vidar Kallrø of Kagge Forlag, which is currently building a successful Nordic literary profile that includes Hallgrímur Helgason and Sofi Oksanen.

A woman moves to Husum, a suburb of Copenhagen, so her children can grow up with grass beneath their feet. Waiting there are football pitches with an angel in a hoodie, parents gathered around their children’s delicious mud pies, lethal bouncy castles, interrupted sexual encounters, and ill-timed visitors from Pakistan. As you approach forty, it becomes perfectly clear: you have a responsibility, even if it isn’t entirely obvious what that responsibility entails.

Wild Horses is about family life, told in short chapters, scene by scene — carried by a linguistic rhythm that makes the rhythm itself the novel’s engine. High tempo and pauses to smile, laughter and tenderness, and a narrative voice of singular generosity. Never over the top, but always recognizable and true.

Beneath the lighthearted surface lie the big questions. How do you stay yourself while adjusting to the people around you? How do you raise happy and secure children with rules and consistency when you aren’t consistent yourself? How do you find friendship while holding your own against the dull, and at times neurotic, life of the suburbs? And how do you live with the knowledge that you can be too much for some people?

Pilgaard writes with a loving gaze and an insight that hits home. Wild Horses is for all of us with families and neighbors — or who have simply found ourselves on a playground, wondering what part we play in the world.