A Fortune Foretold

April 15, 2017
An autobiographical novel by Swedish novelist, poet, and playwright Pleijel about a young woman's search for meaning, identity, and independence.When she learns of a fortuneteller's prophecy of her beloved aunt's life and death, Neta is swept up in the possibilities for romance and adventure it contains but also comforted by an underlying sense of order to the world in the predestination of a life's events. Tossed in the chaos of adolescence and emerging sexuality, and increasingly aware of the instability coursing beneath her family's seemingly indissoluble bonds, Neta craves coherence and balance: between the unknown and the tangible; her hyperlogical mathematician father and her intense, volatile musician mother; the potential for a supernatural world and the earthly concerns of the everyday. As a young girl, she seeks deeper truths through religion but finds herself unable to believe. When her foray into faith fails, Neta performs a musical number in a school production and is seduced by the power of imitation, of pretending to be a more confident person than she is. She becomes preoccupied with simulating passion though is unable, too, to forge a real connection or fall in love, wandering numbly from partner to partner. Desperate to differentiate herself from her family, her town, her suffocating mother, Neta's awareness and self-knowledge deepen, and she tumbles through the revelations of a girl, then young woman, finally finding space for her mind's expansion in the study of philosophy and literature. The story occasionally loses its forward drive and turns episodic but is overall deeply inquisitive, as Pleijel explores the mysteries of what it is to be alive, to be connected to family while inhabiting the self alone, to love, to seek and live a life of meaning. A delicate study of a young girl's maturation, airy and filled with imagery of light, at times advancing unevenly, but more often funny, familiar, and profound.

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April 1, 2017

"Childhood is a no-man's-land" proclaims this lucidly written autobiographical novel from distinguished Swedish author/critic Pleijel, which slips among first, second, and third person as it chronicles a difficult 1950s upbringing. With her warm yet self-absorbed professor father and depressed, hypercritical pianist mother incessantly at each other's throats, Neta ends up full of fear, doubt, and self-loathing, always taking blame on herself. Moving around constantly owing to her father's job doesn't help, as she's ever the outsider, at a new school nearly every year, and she has fantastical moments where she imagines knives flying through the air. Quietly unconventional Aunt Ricki is the one bright spot in her life, and Neta clings hopefully to a fortune-teller's prediction that Ricki will find true love. VERDICT Neta is a sympathetic character, and readers who enjoy coming-of-age stories will appreciate how Pleijel refreshes the trope, realistically giving us a young heroine who understands the world in bits and pieces, as if flying through clouds.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2017
Growing up in post-WWII Sweden, Neta learns to navigate her world, even while her family is falling apart. Eager to please both parents, even though they are constantly battling each other, she slowly comes to terms with their flaws as people instead of fixating on their assumed virtues as parents. At the center of this tale by a prominent Swedish author is Neta's fascination with her aunt's mysterious fortune-telling experience, and her prophecy for her niece. As Neta grapples with her sexuality and struggles to find her footing as she approaches full womanhood, Pleijel dramatizes the universal themes of youthful curiosity, angst, and the need for self-discovery. Narrated by Neta as an adult looking back at her childhood, Pleijel's fictional autobiography is distinctly written, melancholic in tone, yet there is hope and humor behind the darkness. This will strike a chord with lovers of literary historical fiction and those interested in exploring adolescence and the human condition in an evocative time and place.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)