Even If Everything Ends
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- 25,00 kr
Publisher Description
The climate crisis has escalated beyond our worst nightmares. Raging wildfires sweep through the Swedish countryside, turning vacationers into climate refugees. And yet, against this hellscape, life goes on. Marriages collapse; teenagers fall in love; parents succumb to midlife crises; children rebel.
As society starts to lose its footing, the fates of four very different characters intertwine.
Didrik, a father of three and media consultant, finds that his misguided efforts to be the hero that saves his family only make things worse.
Melissa, a climate change denying influencer, is determined to live for the moment, despite it all.
André, the bitter teenage son of an international sports star, uses the erupting violence to orchestrate his own personal revenge.
And Vilja, a once self-absorbed teenage girl steps up in the face of all this adult ineptitude, to organise and resist.
Brilliantly written, profoundly moving, devastatingly funny, this novel asks us to face up to one question: how will you decide to live, even if everything ends?
TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY ALICE MENZIES
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Liljestrand makes his English-language debut with an engaging climate change satire. In an alternate present, PR consultant Didrik von der Esch is caught stealing a quad bike on camera while attempting to rescue his wife, Carola, and three children from a massive forest fire. Everyone survives, no thanks to him, and he then catches the last train back to Stockholm, without telling Carola or their children where he's gone. There, while the security video circulates online and makes Didrik the subject of a meme, he holes up with his former lover Melissa Stannervik, an influencer who's house-sitting for tennis pro Anders Hell. Melissa finds herself in her own online morass after her tone-deaf posts of early cherry blossoms win her ire as the world collapses, and she keeps up a steady opioid consumption while painting herself as a victim of online bullies. Anders is away on vacation with his 19-year-old son, André, who grows increasingly annoyed and vocal about how the elite have insulated themselves from the consequences of their greed on the climate. Liljestrand gets in plenty of barbs at the various players as they cling to their old lives amid disaster. It makes for a devilish twist on climate fiction.
