Stockholm Series III: Remember the City

Per Anders Fogelstrom's Stockholm Series is a quintet of novels about the intertwined stories of a city and of a family. The research behind and within Fogelstrom's series is prodigiously detailed: he gives us meticulous descriptions of landscapes, weather, rooms, streets, factories, cafes, bars, and emerging landmarks; he knows and understands the historical events, issues, politics of the period, which of them were remote from the working classes, and which were immediate. He tells his stories without contrivance; when there are life-changing events, they erupt into a context of daily life that he conveys no less compellingly. He can show us the clothes his characters are wearing, tell us how these people smell, describe the effect of alcohol and toil on their bodies. Most of all he understand their values, their ideals, their emotions, their human integrity; he admires their enduring strengths, and views their weaknesses with compassion. Jennifer Brown Baverstam's skillful translation is at once transparent and rooted, like its source. --Richard Dyer, The Boston Globe