Collected Works: A Novel
A Novel: 'A wry bestseller that reads like the effortlessly chic European cousin of Fleishman is in Trouble' (Telegraph)
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- 9,49 €
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- 9,49 €
Publisher Description
<p>'HOW CAN ANYONE LEAVE SOMEONE THEY LOVE?'
Martin Berg is falling into crisis. Decades ago, he was an aspiring writer, his girlfriend was the wildly intelligent Cecilia Wickner, and his best friend was the hellraising artist Gustav Becker. But Martin's manuscript is now languishing in a drawer, Gustav has stopped answering his calls, and Cecilia has vanished - leaving him to raise their children alone.
Cecilia: an eccentric wife and absent mother, a woman who was perhaps only true to herself. When Rakel stumbles across a clue as to why her mother left, she sets out to fill the gaps in her family's story and discovers that some questions have no clear answers...</p>
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sandgren debuts with a sweeping and complex drama of family, art, and sacrifice. Martin Berg and his two children live in contemporary Gothenburg, Sweden, haunted by the loss of Martin's wife Cecilia, who disappeared after defending her PhD thesis in 1997. In the years since, Martin has worked at a niche publishing house, and his oldest child, Rakel, now 24, has grown up to resemble her mother and likewise to be serious, hyperdisciplined, and drawn to difficult academic work. Before the narrative locks in on the circumstances around Cecilia's disappearance, Sandgren takes a long detour into Martin's middle-class childhood, and how his life was changed after meeting the "fragile" and "unkempt" Gustav Becker. Their high school friendship, described in all its vagaries and nuance over the course of the book, is defined by their shared interest in creating art: Martin wants to write a novel, and Gustav wants to paint. When Martin meets Cecilia, Gustav is included in the relationship rather than left behind, and as Gustav's star rises, his most successful paintings turn out to be portraits of Cecilia. Sandgren keeps up the intrigue as Rakel learns more about Gustav and Cecilia; and she brings a wry sense of humor to her portrayal of Martin, noting about his wistfulness that he'll never be "remarkably young again." Readers will be captivated.
