Have you ever told a lie? How about a lie that ruins another man’s reputation? This is the sin that Norby commits and the event that kicks off the storyline in this book. Will he feel guilty and come clean before he ruins another man’s life?

Norby is a farmer of wealth and a timber baron at the turn of the 20th century. He guarantees a loan for a young entrepreneur who ends up going bankrupt. Norby is embarrassed so goes along with a lie told to put the entrepreneur in a bad light. As time goes on this lie becomes bigger and bigger and causes more problems for Norby and the poor entrepreneur who works hard to clear his reputation. It eventually becomes difficult to separate the truth from fiction.

Bojer explores how a lie effects the unfairly accused, the liar and everyone else involved. As we read how the novel delves into the psychology behind each character’s personality and how they came to be that way, it isn't hard to see why this author was nominated five times for the Nobel prize in literature. Johan Bojer (born Johan Kristoffer Hansen) was a popular Norwegian novelist and dramatist. He grew up as a foster child in a poor family living in Rissa near Trondheim, Norway. He learned of the realities of poverty early in life. Bojer principally wrote about the lives of poor farmers and fishermen, both in his native Norway and among the Norwegian immigrants in the United States. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times and is best remembered for his novel 'The Emigrants', a major novel dealing with the motivations and trials of Norwegians that emigrated to the plains of North Dakota.