The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark

By (author): Christopher Meades

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Henrik Nordmark is a bald, middle-aged security guard with few friends and no romantic possibilities. Tired of being the weed sprouting out of the wallflower, generic in his generality, Henrik has an epiphany. He will have one moment of inimitable distinction, even if it kills him.

Henrik first sets out to experience the throes of addiction, then to become virtuous, and barring this to be known as a public menace. Inevitably he resolves to find true love and fails miserably. Along his journey, Henrik inadvertently becomes the target of a team of elderly assassins — one blind, one deaf, and the other mute.

Henrik’s counterpart is Roland, a young office worker who, thinking he’s won the lottery, dumps his girlfriend and casts aside his friends. He addresses an email to the company where he works: “Dear Heartless Bastards …” Soon Roland’s entire world — the fictional one he’d built up in his mind — comes crashing down to painful reality.

Henrik’s and Roland’s lives intertwine with that of a young couple, the aptly named Bonnie and Clyde, two formerly star-crossed lovers who have grown to loathe each other. Bonnie and Clyde now have homicidal intent in their hearts, but do they have the cleverness or proficiency to pull off their respective crimes?

The characters’ lives all come together in a crescendo in which Henrik realizes his true purpose on earth.

AUTHOR

Christopher Meades

Christopher Meades’s novel The Last Hiccup won the 2013 Canadian Authors Association National Award for Fiction. His first novel was The Three Fates of Henrik Nordmark, and his stories have been featured in dozens of journals including The Fiddlehead and The Dalhousie Review. He lives in Vancouver, where his two young daughters treat him like a trampoline. One day he hopes to escape his cubicle and live by the beach.

Reviews

“Witty and entertaining . . . the book is full of laugh-out-loud moments. Henrik is ridiculous in his simplicity (suggesting that ‘their two person department have a Secret Santa program’), and his multiple phobias keep his adventure interesting.” — Publishers Weekly


“A slapstick comedy of errors that moves at a breakneck pace.” — Quill & Quire


“Well-written, totally hilarious yet also poignant, and brilliantly planned . . . Henrik is ironically an unforgettable character, whose internal thought processes, like those of young Roland, are innocent and often illogical (in Henrik’s case, if he didn’t speak with a rather impressive level of intelligence one might think him slightly retarded) but also inevitably hilarious.” — Bella’s Bookshelves


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Excerpts & Samples ×
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Henrik Nordmark is a bald, middle-aged security guard with few friends and no romantic possibilities. Tired of being the weed sprouting out of the wallflower, generic in his generality, Henrik has an epiphany. He will have one moment of inimitable distinction, even if it kills him.

Henrik first sets out to experience the throes of addiction, then to become virtuous, and barring this to be known as a public menace. Inevitably he resolves to find true love and fails miserably. Along his journey, Henrik inadvertently becomes the target of a team of elderly assassins — one blind, one deaf, and the other mute.

Henrik’s counterpart is Roland, a young office worker who, thinking he’s won the lottery, dumps his girlfriend and casts aside his friends. He addresses an email to the company where he works: “Dear Heartless Bastards …” Soon Roland’s entire world — the fictional one he’d built up in his mind — comes crashing down to painful reality.

Henrik’s and Roland’s lives intertwine with that of a young couple, the aptly named Bonnie and Clyde, two formerly star-crossed lovers who have grown to loathe each other. Bonnie and Clyde now have homicidal intent in their hearts, but do they have the cleverness or proficiency to pull off their respective crimes?

The characters’ lives all come together in a crescendo in which Henrik realizes his true purpose on earth.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

206 Pages
8.5in * 5.5in * 0.5in
0.62lb

Published:

September 01, 2010

City of Publication:

Toronto

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

ECW Press

ISBN:

9781550229721

Book Subjects:

FICTION / Humorous / General

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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