After a first notable foray into the sphere of the novel (The survivors), Swedish essayist Alex Schulman sets the table again with Next stopcomponent from the same pool of ingredients.
For them, everything converges on Malma. A single-parent father and his daughter, convinced of being rejected by everyone, transport a mysterious urn there to bury her. A couple born and evolving in sparks. A plump woman stalking a specific location in the heart of the small town. They all got into a wagon heading towards the same destination. But if the rails which take them there turn out to be the same, many trains have passed under the bridges between each of their journeys. What connects them? And what is this secret code that this father and his daughter exchange with complicity, “Ninen”?
Once again, Schulman pieces together and reconstructs the timelines to build a multi-layered story, skipping decades to gradually stitch together the overall fresco of this family history. A well-calibrated psychology of the characters, a sensitive and unadorned pen, as well as a narrative construction that takes numerous turns without ever losing us (the author having resisted the sirens of the gallery full of protagonists, focusing instead on the development of a handful of them) once again form a winning formula. But, with a view to a hypothetical third title, wouldn’t this one deserve a bigger twist, in order to surprise us even more? In the meantime, we don’t shy away from our pleasure by enjoying this not-so-complex, but high-quality puzzle.
Next stop
Albin Michel
300 pages