Nesbo keeps it brief
You wanted a Harry Hole novel? Tough. The writer has a new short story collection
As a 17-year-old in Norway, Jo Nesbo believed he was on the cusp of soccer stardom, having been selected to play for Molde FK, a Premier League team in his hometown. Then he tore ligaments in both knees; his career was over.
After time in the military, college and the business world, Nesbo did become a star as the vocalist and songwriter for Di Dierre, a pop band that had a No. 1 album in Norway in 1994. But the group never made the jump to international glory, and it wasn’t until a 30-hour flight to Australia that Nesbo found his true calling, as a crime novelist.
He chose a crime novel because he’d read plenty. His father had lived in Brooklyn for a time and Nesbo grew up with both Norwegian and American culture. (He was even wearing a T-shirt honoring pulp fiction icon Jim Thompson during our Zoom interview.)
“I’d seen all my friends trying to write the big European novel and never finish, so I thought, ‘Let’s write something that has a structure,’ and I knew the structure of crime novels.”
Nesbo grew up in a family that loved telling stories — as a kid he specialized in spooky ghost tales — and learned “that you better have a good punchline, but the art of storytelling is also about the journey getting there.”
In 1997, his first novel, “The Bat,” featuring
Harry Hole as a talented but troubled detective, debuted in Norway. Nearly 25 years later, Nesbo is a well-established star, with a dozen Harry Hole novels as well as nine other works of crime fiction.
(He also has four children’s books in the “Doctor Procter’s Fart Powder” series.)
His work has been translated into 50 languages and sold 50 million copies around the world. His latest is “The Jealousy Man,” a collection of dark and twisty short stories and novellas that reveal the worst in human nature. The title story and at least one other, “London,” are being adapted for TV or film, joining a growing list of Nesbo adaptations that including “The Hanging Sun” and “The Devil’s Star.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q
What’s the appeal for you of writing short stories?
A
When you write a novel, it’s like steering a supertanker. You have to plan; you have to have a route; you can’t just go left and right.
I started writing lyrics and the challenge was to write a story in three verses and a refrain. For me, a short story is like writing songs: You can sit down and write, and you can quickly tell whether it’s working or not. And if it works, it may already be finished — that’s a really good feeling, to go to bed at night having written a story.
Also, you don’t have to explain a short story. When you write a novel, you have to think, ‘What is this really about?’ A short story can just have a feeling and that’s OK.
Q
Did you also enjoy the fact that if you’re writing short stories, no one is looking for Harry Hole, so you’re free to try new things?
A
I became a writer relatively late in life, at 37. I became a writer to be able to do whatever I want to do. I don’t feel any obligation nor loyalty toward my readers, my publishing house nor my bank account. If you write to serve your readers, it won’t be any good. I write what I want.
Q
Even your stories that have a “happy” ending for the protagonist are pretty dark. Is that because of the genre you’re writing in or does it say something about your tastes or your personality?
A
I don’t think much about genre when I’m writing. But I probably can’t give you a truthful answer, at least not one I would put much faith in.
I go by gut instinct, like there’s a certain gravity to a story and you can’t fight it. But it’s me writing the story so maybe my saying that is just me trying to escape any responsibility for creating an ending like that.
Q
OK, but do you have a dark world view?
A
I’m a born pessimist. And I guess that’s why I’m so happy in life — I feel like I have nothing to lose. I’ve already taken into account thinking about the worst things that can happen, so anything deviating from that is good news.
Q
Did the training you did when you were playing soccer help shape you as a writer?
A
No. I was so young, I was that guy who was talented but who only respected talent and didn’t respect hard work. I would take what came easily for me. If I hadn’t been injured I wouldn’t have been successful simply because I didn’t have the discipline and ambition.
And school was easy for me but when I was playing soccer I was skipping school, so my grades, which had always been good, became so bad. I’d taken it for granted that I could study anything but suddenly I didn’t have the grades.
It was all due to my lack of discipline and ambition. As soon as things got a bit difficult, I would just shy away from it. I was a character with no substance, no spine.
Q
A
I learned it in the military. My father was a very gentle man and never forced me to do anything, but he could see I was straying and not fulfilling my potential, so he sent me to officers school. It’s a very old-fashioned thing to do but I’m forever grateful to him. The military was a wake-up call and I learned there was something called hard work.
Now, having passed
60, I’m working on being a rock climber, which I started when I’m 50. Now I have the right attitude but not the body, of course.
When did you learn your work ethic?
Q
Harry Hole is not the kind of guy you think about as being a patron saint of literacy. But your Harry Hole Foundation gives money to invest in literacy programs around the world. What drove you to start that?
A
Really, it started when I was 17 and I traveled around the world as far as my money could take me. I realized then that those people I met in other countries were not the ones living in a different world; I was. Living in a place like Norway — where you get to go to school, go to university for free — we took that for granted like it was almost a human right. Of course, it’s not.
And later I thought about how you can’t have a democracy if people can’t read and write and you can’t spread the information to make a choice.
So literacy is fundamental for people around the world to have better lives for themselves and their families, especially for girls in some of these countries to be able to break out from their mental and physical prisons.