The Black Signs

he Black Signs, the first novel from Norwegian art historian and curator Lars Mørch Finborud is a well-crafted and inventive story with a dark subject. A lawyer charged with inventorying an estate whose owner has disappeared discovers the abandoned house is crammed with piles of black signs, memorial plaques dedicated to inconsequential, horrible or forgotten events documentation of a hidden reality an unprecedented project on a huge scale. He comes across passionate letters addressed to a mysterious friend and tucked among the piles he discovers remnants of a catalog listing millions of relics and collectors objects from the history of modern art, all of which at one time had been auctioned. What follows soon adds up to an incredible and at times ambiguously dazzling tale that is at once unique and yet truly of our time.