Excerpt from I Refuse by Per Petterson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Tommy. How long have we been friends.'

'All of our lives,' Tommy said.

'I can't remember us ever not being friends. When would that have been.' Jim said. 'I think it could last the rest of our lives,' he said carefully, in a low voice. 'Don't you think.'

'We will change. We were more like each other before than we are now.'

'We've never been like each other. Think of your parents. Of the time you had.'

'That's true, I guess. And you've been a Christian. I've never been a Christian. Or maybe a little. A little Christian.'

'I'm not a Christian any more. I'm a socialist.'

'Yes, that's right, you are,' Tommy said. 'But it will last if we want it to. It depends on us. We can be friends for as long as we want to.'

'And we want to, don't we,' Jim said.

'Sure,' Tommy said. 'I will, at least. Won't you.'

'Sure I will,' Jim said, and he felt so happy, for what would the future have been without Tommy, what would life have been, and they could talk in this way only because it was night and the light was different and they had their caps on, which made them different from who they were during daytime in the real world and at the same time made them more similar to each other, even though Tommy was taller than Jim. But they couldn't see that, and the moon shone over Lake Aurtjern and it was as cold as hell and no one could see them with their caps on anyway, and nothing was as it used to be, and they could say anything they liked, and Jim said:

'Is it because you think I'm an OK person that you're friends with me. Is there something special about me that you think is good.'

'We're friends because we're friends. We've always been friends. You're Jim. You've always been Jim.'

'Is that a good thing.'

'Sure, it's good.'

'That's great,' Jim said, but suddenly he wasn't so sure if it was enough. It didn't feel like it was, not quite, because maybe it was more like you had to be worthy. He had thought that a few times, that he ought to make himself worthy, that was how it felt. But he swallowed those feelings, he let them go, and so instead he said:

'Do you ever hear from your mother or father.'

'No.'

'Don't you think that's sad.'

'No, I don't think it's sad. I don't give a damn.'

'I can understand that,' Jim said. And Tommy thought, does he, and maybe he did, for they were so close to each other that there might be some current between them, an electric arc that made one feel what the other felt. That could be it, because right now Tommy had been thinking about his mother, that she could see him gliding around on this lake in the night and from the heaven above she said in the voice that he didn't remember, is that there my son, she said, with that cap on, no it isn't, I don't know that boy, he doesn't look like my Tommy, which of course he didn't any more.

Excerpted from I Refuse by Per Petterson. Copyright © 2015 by Per Petterson. Excerpted by permission of Graywolf Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.