Marte Michelet’s new book Det har skjedd verre ting i utlandet - scener fra et farskap (Things Worse Have Happened Abroad – Scenes from a Fatherhood) is a biography that offers not only an intimate portrait of her father, Jon Michelet, but also of Marte Michelet herself.
The book is playful, surprising, and filled with both warmth and seriousness – a blend of biography, autobiography, and self-therapy. Several years have passed since his death, and the grief has not subsided; on the contrary. To cope with the unexpected and conflicted emotions, she adopts a motto: WWJMD (What Would Jon Michelet Do?), and then begins doing what she believes Jon Michelet would have done. She smokes hash, has sex with strangers, learns how to stroll like a man, and realises that she actually must write the book about her father that everyone has been urging her to write.
The result is a mixture of biography, autobiography, and self-therapy, and while it is very funny and entertaining, it also makes room for both warmth and gravity.
Meet Marte Michelet in conversation with Aftenbladet’s Harald Birkevold.
Book sales and signing after the event.