I bought The Exception on a whim after seeing a positive review of it in the New Yorker this past summer, and it turned out to be possibly the best contemporary novel I've read in the last couple of years; I read the last 200 pp in a day. The prose is clean, spare, taut, the characters well drawn. The use of the Danish Center for Information on Genocide is fantastic--the novel is presented as a thriller, and it is in a way, but really it's a close examination of office politics through a masterful use of multiple points of view. I realize that description doesn't sound all that thrilling in itself, and I actually wasn't sure Jungersen would be able to adequately connect the meditations on the horrors of genocide (represented in the book through a number of DCIG articles, which appear in their entirety) with the petty gossip, backbiting, and bullying that occurs in a contained social space like an office, but the results are positively chilling and thoroughly thought-provoking. With the threatening e-mails, it's technically a whodunit, but really, whodunit is not the point. Really, it's about the darkest corners of human nature, and it's unflinching. Highly recommended.

It has applications from micro to macro relationships. Very well written. Very useful fiction.

For a five hundred page book, it's no mean feat to say that the first 400 pages that Jungersen delivers are taut, pacy and a bit on the cruel side. But why not, even though the book takes place in an office in Denmark that deals in the study of genocide, the women working there find that their own actions are softer echoes of the very crimes they examine. So far, so good. The parallels are well drawn, but the characters less so as they each begin to unravel. Jungersen presents us with the possibility that all four of his central characters are mentally damaged, a tough pill to swallow in a book that seemed rooted in reality in its opening pages. In the last hundred pages, having cooked up a tense storm in the quiet little office, Jungersen gives in to the inevitable and brings in charcters from other quarters to push the plot towards its conclusion. The conclusion, unfortunatley, is more reminscent of a hour long TV detective show than the brilliantly introspective opening chunk of the book. Still, definitely worth a read.

I forced myself to finish this novel against my better judgment--just to find out who sent the threatening emails. (I won't be a spoiler here.) But my progress through this novel was agonizing. The writer has no idea how to build up character and make the characters significantly different and distinct from each other. They all merged into one character, as it were. The plot moves--if it does--at a snail's pace. The atmosphere in this office--presumably pursuing noble purposes--is cold, hostile, and threatening. Without rime or reason, strange things happen to the characters that turn them inside out and backwards; after a while I could not trust any of the characters to behave in a believable and consistent manner. I just couldn't stand any of them. I think that the novelist needs to learn about humanity and to create his characters with humility, sympathy, and generosity.

I am so happy my American family can finally read this book. I am Danish and was so sad not to be able to share such a genius book with my family overhere.

I read a lot of non-fiction, thus my favorite fiction books are the ones that teaches me something - not just entertain. This book, not only teaches you, it makes you ask yourself crusial questions about your own character. Have you bullied someone in the past? unintentionally or misinterpreted the acts to put yourself in a better light?

I love the way he juxtaposes the office bullying and the civil war crimes in yugoslavia, where a highschool class is split by the civil war and former classmates end up killing or torturing each other. Is it not really shades of the same nature? How far would you go? would you be strong enough to resist if you friends pressured you? Or, simply follow along, caught up in the sense of urgency?

There is a lot to be learned about human nature in this book and by using an example we all know, like bullying in the workplace, we are forced to question ourselves. Are you as civilized and good as you like to think?