The Third Realm

A Novel

By: Karl Ove Knausgaard, Martin Aitken

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kelsey Jaffer, Ari Fliakos, Neil Hellegers, Raphael Corkhill, Saskia Maarleveld, Vas Eli, Nina Yndis

Experience a major new literary universe in the making with this kaleidoscopic novel about ordinary lives on the cusp of irrevocable change, from bestselling author Karl Ove Knausgaard.

If no one ever died, what would happen then?

For several days, a strange and bright new star in the sky above Norway has sown an unyielding sense of foreboding, of agitation, and of fear. Tove, a painter on holiday with her family, has spiraled into a psychosis that stirs her into a flurry of unbridled creativity. Geir, a policeman who has been investigating a grisly triple murder, comes to a sinister revelation he must keep to himself. Nineteen-year-old Line falls in love with the lead singer of a metal band and is lured into a secret and frightening world.

But most bewildering, and disquieting, is the discovery made by Syvert, an undertaker: since the star has appeared, no one has died.

In The Third Realm, Karl Ove Knausgaard returns to the spellbinding world of The Morning Star and The Wolves of Eternity, as a cast of new and familiar characters continue to reckon with the meaning of this star. What is haunting them, and why?

As supernatural forces collide with the mundanities of the everyday, and the threshold between life and death becomes diffuse, people are forced to live their lives as before while the world around them slowly changes in inexplicable ways. Piercing through human existence into the bestial and phantasmagorical, Knausgaard flings open the gates to our most distressing neuroses and forces us to ask: What happens if the dark forces in the world are set free?

©2024 Karl Ove Knausgaard (P)2024 Knopf Canada

Critic reviews

“The Third Realm is as unsettling, disturbing and riveting as [Knausgaard’s] previous instalments, and I was even disappointed that it came in at a mere 500 pages. . . . Knausgaard’s skill in capturing conversation makes his characters spring vividly from the page. . . . His books are as accessible and creepy as anything by Stephen King and as addictive as your favourite TV drama series. There’s no writer I would rather devour.”—The Spectator

“Ferociously readable. . . . [Knausgaard’s] faith that access to the consciousness of others might make us feel less alone remains a profound—and distinctly literary—conviction.”—The Times

“Intense. . . A clarifying continuation, packed with philosophy, terror, and the beauty of the mundane.”—Publishers Weekly