I Am Behind You

July 23, 2018
Four families and their vacation caravans are somehow transported into a seemingly endless grassy meadow in Lindqvist’s ambitious and frustrating novel of cosmic horror, the first of a projected trilogy. Their world now includes a bright sky, no sun, a lot of grass, three married couples of various degrees of happiness, two friends who are inching toward romance, two children, one cat, one dog, and whatever was in the caravans when they arrived. GPS maps show them in places they cannot possibly be, such as on roads that ceased to exist years ago. The radio works, but plays only songs written by Peter Himmelstrand, a real-life 1960s Swedish pop star. (In Sweden, the title of the novel is Himmelstrand.) Unsurprisingly, tensions in the group are high, especially since unpleasant, elderly Donald has a gun, and Molly, one of the children, is a budding psychopath. The characters, the group dynamics, and the unfolding mystery of what’s going on and why are well-depicted and engrossing, but the ending peters out in a futile attempt to remain emotionally satisfying while still leaving most events unexplained. A future book may shed more light, but the first installment makes it difficult to maintain enough investment in the story to want more of it. Agent: Anneli Høier, Copenhagen Literary (Sweden).

August 1, 2018

When Isabelle's daughter wakes her up because she cannot find the bathroom outside their caravan, Isabelle thinks someone has played a horrible trick on them and the other three families camping nearby. But the campground has suddenly vanished, and family is parked on green grass that stretches as far as they can see. The sky is bright blue, but there's no sun. In fact, there is nothing at all to show them where they are: no trees, no buildings, no animals, no civilization. Most electric devices do not work, and the radios only play 1960s pop singer Peter Himmelstrand. As the story unfolds, the four families work together to discover where they are and if a way out is possible. Dark fears and desires and past events the characters have tried to bury are coming to light under the bright sunless sky, and there may be no way to survive it. VERDICT Swedish sensation Lundqvist's (Let the Right One In) twisting journey into the dark corners of the mind is true psychological horror. It will keep entranced and shocked readers guessing until the very end.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2018
In an exercise recalling Stephen King's Under the Dome? (2009), Lindqvist, an author capable of imbuing his terrifying tales with heavy doses of emotion, crash-lands characters into an absurd situation?and then lets chaos reign. Four families go to bed in their camping trailers, only to awaken with the campsite, as well as the rest of the world, utterly gone, replaced by an endless horizon of green grass. Former soccer star Peter and his model wife, Isabelle, were already at each other's throats. Stefan, Carina, and their son, Emil, are simply not cut out for such stress. Violent lout Donald and his numbed wife, Majvor, don't care what happens to the others. And elderly gay couple Lennart and Olof are concerned about Peter and Isabelle's daughter, Molly, who seems to be channeling some nefarious force. The explicitly supernatural elements?lurking monsters having something to do with past traumas?never satisfyingly coalesce, but when Lindqvist channels the classic Twilight Zone episode "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street," showing how quickly humans will turn on one another, the results are chilling.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)