Occupied tells a long-held wartime secret

“Sit with me...” Rosalie Grosch Arden Hills, Minn. “Age and perspective greatly influence how people remember things, and everyone’s parents tell embellished stories,” writes author Kurt Blorstad in the opening pages of his recent novel, Occupied. Because the author wants to learn about the places in Norway he learned about from his father’s stories, he and his father, Trygve, travel to Norway for Trygve’s 70th birthday. The return to Norway is emotional, and Trygve says to his son, “Sit with me and I will tell you what I have only ever shared with my mom.” And so the story begins, written as a journal beginning in May 1936. Trygve and his two brothers were born in America. When Trygve was 7, the family returned to Norway to visit relatives. Trygve’s father did not stay in Norway as long as the rest of the family, as he needed to return to America to raise money