Endre Lund Eriksen

The Summer Dad Turned Gay

Den sommeren pappa ble homo

Arvidsjaur has a name he would like to keep secret, a dog he would like to kept shut in and a dad who has behaved extremely oddly ever since his mum made off with her a bit too personal trainer. And as if that wasn’t enough: this year he and his dad are to spend their holiday in an old, decrepit caravan in some deadbeat place far out in the country, where the sole attraction is Scandinavia’s most famous outside loo.

The only young person living there, Indiane, is already well into adolescence, even though she is only one day older than Arvidsjaur. She has a golden retriever that Arvidsjaur’s mongrel dog Waldo mates with every time he gets the chance. She also has a dad, Roger Berg. He goes around stripped to the waist a lot of the time and is completely gay. And he also spends a lot of the time visiting his dad…

A lot can go wrong this summer.

And the weather’s nothing to write home about either.

‘Masters the art of making a classic out of a relevant complex issue … It is possibly only Endre Lund Eriksen […] who with so much humour, seriousness and breadth can make something so cool out of puberty, identity, divorce and sexual orientation.’

Dagbladet

‘One of the fascinating things about Endre Lund Eriksen is that he takes difficult questions, wrings the maximum amount of embarrassment out of them, and ends up with a comic result.’

Aftenposten
Photo: Stine Friis Hals

Endre Lund Eriksen (b. 1977) is one of Norway’s most beloved children’s book authors, and spends a lot of time traveling to festivals and schools to share his love of books with children and young adults. His breakthrough came in 2002 with the book Pitbull-Terje Runs Amok, which received excellent reviews and won him the 2002 Ministry of Culture’s Prize for Best Children’s Book. In 2005 the book was made into a movie. It was a huge success both with the audience and the critics. His books are also popular abroad and have been translated into 11 languages. When he is not writing books Lund Eriksen works with film and animation. He is the artistic director of Tromsø Children’s Film Festival and in 2013 he formed the animation company Fabelfjord in Tromsø. Lund Eriksen has a degree in literary history, stage history and general history.