Jo Nesbø’s new project: – Live like an elite athlete – VG

– I probably ate half a kilo of chocolate a week and cut the day. It was tough. Almost like when my father had a heart attack and stopped smoking the next day. I have to do it hard and brutally, not slow weaning, says Jo Nesbø.

We caught up with him in a coffee shop regarding his new independent crime novel, “The Kingdom,” which will be released simultaneously in 16 (!) Countries on September 2nd. And we notice that something is different. No brioche, as always, and is there coffee with oat milk? Order a salad, choose the aged cheese, and the dressing remains intact.

Check out VG’s review of “The Kingdom” here: Blood is splattering

– I’ve never thought about diet before. I actually thought I was eating healthy, but when I started looking at what I was eating, I realized that my diet is not something to cheer me up on. It was an espresso with sugar cubes, a baguette with cheese and ham, and a sweet, heavy brioche for lunch. I’ve actually eliminated the sugar completely now, but I’ve been cracking a bit lately, says Nesbø.

Is it age that speaks, is it that he turned 60 in March?

– I’m 60 years old and I need to get stronger. So the exciting question now is: do you have something to do at 60? It goes without saying that I must at least put in a lot more training and a lot more effort than if I were 30 and wanted to be stronger.

Because it is not about maintaining anything or “stopping degeneration”, as he says. This is a project you may not be able to do: almost a year ago, you decided to write about two climbing legends who set out to try something unrealistic. The American Lynn Hill, who became the first climber to freely climb the famous The Nose route, and the Norwegian Hans Christian Doseth, who climbed the Trango massif, but tragically died on the way.

– In parallel to writing about these border agents, I, a completely mediocre climber, would set myself an equally unrealistic goal: to climb a route with grade 8a.

For the uninitiated it means: As a rule, a cantilevered route of between 20 and 30 meters and with minimum ceilings for hands and feet. If Jo had climbed this grade in her early twenties, when the climbing environment was smaller and there were no internal walls to train on, she would have belonged to the Norwegian elite.

There is also a cliff that is central to the new crime novel “The Kingdom”, because at the bottom of the cliff is the cadillac in which the parents of the brothers Roy and Carl died. In what is said to be a descent or suicide. The brothers grow up on a remote farm in a mountain town and the older brother does everything he can to protect his little brother. Sibling love and jealousy go hand in hand.

Two brothers and a woman, Jo Nesbø has summed it all up.

– It is really strange that I have not used the fraternal substance before, I have lived a life characterized by fraternal relationships. We were three brothers and I feel good with the strength of being three. We were invincible on the outside, we supported each other, and I use those feelings in this book. The fact that he is emotionally committed to his family, his siblings, and perhaps especially his little brother, says Nesbø, who lost his little brother Knut Nesbø to cancer in 2013.

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– Yes, it can be the trick when you watch a soccer game at home, and there is a situation where there is a clear penalty kick, and you automatically pick up the phone to call and argue like in the past, and then it comes that he is gone . There are times when you don’t have your emotional guard up, you lose a moment.

Knut was only a year younger.

– There was probably a strong brotherly love between us, brothers, but brothers also have a life in which their paths diverge. For me and Knut it was probably a bit different, there was only a one year difference between us, and we continued to be close to each other the entire way. V played on the same soccer team, played on the same band, lived in the same city. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Although the modern welfare state has taken over many of the functions of the family, the family represents bonds that cannot be escaped, whether you want to or not.

The father in the new book puts it this way: it’s us against them, it’s us against everyone else.

– It was probably not so extreme at home with us, but I remember that my father, who was a sworn supporter of rational arguments and logic, made an exception in an old neighborhood fight. When I told him that this case could well be viewed from two sides, he replied, “Sure, but when it comes to your family, keep looking from one side. Family loyalty can strengthen us externally, but at the same time, of course, family love can also make you more vulnerable, give you something to lose.

He himself does not have a particularly large family:

– I have a daughter, an older brother, Knut’s son and two nieces. I also have a large circle of friends from many years ago. And considering I’m not a particularly sociable guy, so … well that’s more than enough, he laughs, before getting serious:

– It happens that as a young person you read about older people who are asked what they regret before dying, then nobody answers that they wish they had worked more overtime. They respond that they regret not spending more time with their loved ones. Now that I am getting older, I recognize that this is indeed the case.

– Do you regret that?

– Yes.

Psst! After this interview was conducted, “Kongeriket” was reported on VG and various newspapers. VG critic Sindre Hovdenakk thought the 631-page novel slowed down and gave a roll of the 4 dice, but wrote that “as a kind of village pulp fiction,” The Kingdom “still works fairly good”. While other critics agreed, Dagbladet reported that the roll of the dice is 6.

Nesbø himself sends the following comment on the reception:

– It’s interesting that critics perceive the book so differently. They are skilled and seasoned readers, and I respect both those who don’t think this is their cup of tea as well as those who swallow both the tea and the cup, so to speak.