Christian Jungersen's The Exception - Denmark

Denmark - Undtagelsen

It is all of the finest literary quality, well crafted through and through... Scary in a thrillingly realistic way and quite frankly clever. More than a few well-educated women will find their souls laid bare – yours truly included. This is certainly a man who has a full grasp of the female psyche.
Phew! – you’re left shaking.
Børsen

Denmark
The Exception was published in October 2004 by Gyldendal. It has stayed on the Danish Top Ten list for more than 18 months.
The novel has won two Danish major literary prizes, among them the coveted ‘Golden Laurels’.

Christian Jungersen illuminates evil and the conditions for it in dazzling ways in this novel, which must be regarded as the greatest reading experience yet this year ... What a shame that one can’t read it again for the first time!
Fyens Stiftstidende

With this harrowing novel about four “liberal arts” women who harass each other, Christian Jungersen strikes at the heart of the raging debate on the psychology of evil... By means of diabolically clever storytelling, Jungersen lets us sympathize with now one and now another of these entangled friends...
A tremendous story that doesn’t feel one line too long... Readers who have yearned for a new novel by Peter Høeg can find a fully satisfactory equivalent in this novel.
Ekstra Bladet

A revelation in novelistic technique... The Exception changes between the protagonists’ viewpoints with startling and striking results. With every shift, one must revise one’s understanding of the course of events...
The Exception is an altogether extraordinary novelistic experience... The use of flashbacks and the discreet imparting of crucial information are both handled masterfully. The descriptions of the various settings are captivating and on the money, right down to the last detail. The portrayals of life, whether as a newly minted MA or a 40-year-old secretary, are written with a precision that their casual naturalness only renders sharper.
Information

The Exception is a great and richly written novel... Jungersen’s novel is intensely exciting, both as a thriller and as a snapshot of Denmark and some of its inhabitants today. The descriptions of the two girlfriends’ lives, individually and together, are especially fine...
If as reader you’re able to move between a mode in which you effortlessly observe a skillful reflection of your own era and its people, and a mode in which you are transported by the inexorable logic and momentum of the plot, then what awaits you in The Exception is a savvy contemporary panorama, insight into an uncomfortably relevant subject, and … elementary reading pleasure.
Jyllands-Posten

A whirlwind philosophic drama, with all the trimmings of threats and murder and a plot so tight, that you have to go all the way to the final page before the last piece falls into place (and an entire worldview shatters) ... The Exception is written with a scalpel. All linguistic ornament has been pared away. Christian Jungersen has kept an eye on John le Carré’s way of twisting a plot and consciously kept his style stripped down and exact.
Weekendavisen

In The Exception there is an extraordinarily brilliant incorporation of nonfiction into the plot’s unfolding... Jungersen sandwiches the reader between fact and fiction, and it is simultaneously a joy and damn spooky because it cuts so close to the bone.
Berlingske Tidende

A heavyweight in every way… One of the greatest and most thrilling reads of the season. If I were a film producer, I would snap up the rights NOW!
Euroman

Denmark - Undtagelsen