The Burning

March 15, 2023
A Swedish family struggles to cope with climatological disaster. The von der Esch family--father Didrik, mother Carola, teen daughter Vilja, little brother Zack, and baby Becka--evacuate their summer house in Dalarna as global warming-generated wildfires rage out of control. The author shifts between various family members and characters in their orbit to give first-person accounts of the chaotic aftermath, during which the family is separated (wounded Zack goes off with strangers with a working car; Didrik takes the vulnerable Becka on a crowded train back to Stockholm; Carola and Vilja make their way to an ad hoc refugee camp) and attempts to survive the crisis and hopefully reunite after the worst has passed. The action of the novel is tense, as the oppressive heat, lack of basic resources, and crumbling social contract threaten to overwhelm the embattled clan, but the strongest elements of the narrative are the depth and nuance of the characters' inner monologues. Didrik, a somewhat pompous PR exec, experiences the catastrophe as a test of his masculinity. Vilja, characterized as selfish and bratty by her father, displays remarkable courage and maturity in navigating the fraught environment of the camp. Didrik's mistress, Melissa, an ostensibly vacuous social media influencer safely ensconced in a luxury apartment in Stockholm, leads a rich inner life revolving around her pill addiction and borderline sociopathic manipulativeness. Andr�, the teenage son of the tennis legend whose apartment Melissa is housesitting, drowns in insecurities and resentment as he embarks on an ill-advised nautical adventure. A sense of apocalyptic doom throws the relatively petty concerns of the characters into sharp relief even as their humanity is affirmed by the author's careful attention to their quirks and unique perspectives. There are no villains here aside from climate change--an outward manifestation and inevitable consequence of the self-destructive impulses so relatably embodied by Liljestrand's cast of haplessly civilized refugees. An absorbing and sobering reckoning with all-too-familiar disasters, both personal and planetary.

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March 13, 2023
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. Agent: Astri Von Arbin Ahlander, Ahlander Agency (Sweden).