The best thing you can aspire to in this world, is company. Whether it's for pleasure or pain, a crowning or an execution: everything is better with company. You might say it all went to hell with Mrs. Thorkildsen, but you know what? It could have been worse, because Mrs. Thorkildsen had me to keep her company. And I had her. That's what we had in common, her and me, what bound us together. We were company.'
"Look at this!" Mrs Thorkildsen says, holding the book open to a certain page, and I again feel the quick jolt of fear that sooner or later she will lose track of daily existence, when I once again have to remind her that: "Dogs can't read."
At a nursing home, The Major, a World War II veteran, breathes his last.
Watching over him are his wife and his faithful companion, Tassen, the story's narrator, who is, by his own admission, a couch potato and a one-man dog. After the Major is gone, Tassen and Mrs Thorkildsen settle into their new life surrounded by books and stories of the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's race with Britain's Captain Robert F Scott to reach the South Pole in 1911. Regular visits to the local library and the bar next door provide all types of enlightenment. And Tassen and Mrs Thorkildsen provide company for each other. However when Mrs Thorkildsen becomes ill, Tassen's secure world begins to wobble. Beguiling, poignant, funny and thoughtful, this utterly entertaining novel is destined to become a favourite.