Member-only story
MY FICTION BIO 1978–2020
A Perfect Life in This Perfect World
From “The Cliff” via “The Factory” and “The Heart Never Gets Full” to “The Love We Had”
My upbringing was safe but also marked by loneliness. I was a careful little boy who lived with my parents and my brother in an apartment, a block of flats with 6 apartments in Røldal Haukelivegen in Odda. My father was a factory worker, and my mother worked at home. Both mother and father raised my brother and me to be proud of our background as a factory worker family. Values such as honesty, frugality, and respect dominated that upbringing.
I grew up in the 1950s and 60s in the industrial city of Odda. The fact that my father was a factory worker probably influenced me a lot. I have become the person I have become thanks to my parents and because of growing up in Odda — for better or worse.
When I think back, there are first and foremost two things that strike me: I had a safe upbringing, and I felt very lonely. The two things do not go so well together, maybe someone will say. But I was lucky to have the first, safe upbringing. The fact that I also felt very lonely made me think a lot where I went for myself.
At school I was fine. Mom always told me: “You’re good, Øivind, you’re a good boy…
