Three brothers return to the country house of their childhood to scatter their mother’s ashes in the lake that borders the abandoned property in the heart of the Swedish forest. They haven’t set foot there since childhood, since the tragedy that marked their family two decades earlier.
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Little by little, in a narration that interweaves the past and the present, they trace the thread of their story, revealing their personalities, their affinities, the tensions that remain and the silences that weigh down.
It is not with a synopsis like that, quite banal in appearance, that we grab the readers. What is intriguing is rather the discourse around the survivors, presented as a well-crafted suspense novel supported by very fine writing. The pen of Alex Schulman, known among other things as an essayist in Scandinavia, is beautiful, it’s true, but of a beauty without flafla, very accurate, skilful in weaving atmospheres, penetrating in his exploration of the psyche.
Above all, it is the architecture of his novel that astonishes us. It moves from the past to the present along two distinct timelines: the past advances chronologically, while the chapters in the present move slowly back in time. Until these two lines meet, in a way. It’s tightly knit and, if we wonder for a long time why we talk about suspense about the novel The survivorswe are finally blown away by the revelation at the heart of the book.
In addition to this astonishing turnaround, what makes the strength of this first novel by Alex Schulman is the almost psychoanalytical way in which he delves into the relationships between these three brothers, eager for a dysfunctional parental love, enemies and united at the same time. A dark novel, crossed by flashes of light, which speaks of guilt and forgiveness.
The survivors
Alex Schulman
Albin Michael
288 pages