An autobiographical love letter written in breathless and tragic prose, this novel is as powerful and raw as it is tender and beautiful. Full of humanity and hypnotic in its telling, it is one of the best books of love, loss, resilience and hope I’ve read in a very long time. ( )

An autobiographical love letter written in breathless and tragic prose, this novel is as powerful and raw as it is tender and beautiful. Full of humanity and hypnotic in its telling, it is one of the best books of love, loss, resilience and hope I’ve read in a very long time. ( )

As I read I assumed I was reading a memoir, but it's classified as "literary fiction." It is so authentic, though, so wrenching, there's no way it's anything but true.

I loved this book, painful as it was to read. The style reminded me a little of Karl Ove Knausgaard, whose books have also been termed autofiction. Some reviewers disliked the literary flourishes: running conversations together in one paragraph so that it was difficult to figure out who was talking; shifts in tense and time periods. To me, this was its beauty. It's the way one's brain works after horrific tragedy.

Other reviewers commented that there was very little feeling in the writing; again I disagree. It felt as if it was poured out from Malmquist's heart and soul. ( )

'All you can do is fall to pieces and then come back.'

This is a brave, honest autobiographical novel about losing a wife, being a single father, and of coping with family relationships. I liked the way that Malmquist weaves the story back and forward in time, in a way which mirrors how we both live in the present and are haunted (or comforted) by memories of the past. The final section of the 'novel' - or is it a fictionalised memoir? - is a heart-wrenching but also uplifting account of how Tom is coping with grief whilst starting a new life with his daughter. Moving and powerful stuff. ( )

En bok om sorg och smärta efter sin unga frus död men också sin fars. Boken är skriven med en sådan realism att den går rakt in i hjärtat. Det som gör boken så gripande och trovärdig är hans sätt att skriva. Jag känner ångesten, paniken och stressen på sjukhuset men även hans "vardag" när han kommer hem med ett spädbarn och ensam ska försöka reda ut vardagsbestyren och kampen mot myndigheters sjukliga byråkrati. Tom förskönar varken sig själv, sin insats eller sin omgivning vilket gör boken trovärdig. Boken blir heller aldrig så där sliskigt sentimental som denna typ av böcker gärna kan bli. Den är så realistisk och riktigt bra. ( )