Alex Schulman

“… a lyrical novel of psychological suspense […] Mr. Schulman approaches the story’s pivotal revelation in innovative and circuitous ways. Chapters alternate between the present account of the brothers’ return to the lake house and vignettes of their last summer there and other family history. While the past-tense segments are presented chronologically, the present-tense sections unspool in reverse. This wheel-within-a-wheel mechanism creates a perpetual tension that evokes the sensibility through which Benjamin views his life. […] The Survivors, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles, presents us with simply written, powerfully rendered scenes from the fateful season of these boys’ ‘upper-class upbringing that had somehow occurred below the poverty line.’ […] When the near-unbearable answers to Benjamin’s questions appear, this excruciatingly effective work reveals the ironic sting in its title.”
Wall Street Journal (US)

“…as a study of complex sibling relationships and the layers of guilt and resentment laid down over a lifetime of burying the past, The Survivors is an accomplished debut.”
The Guardian (UK)

“Already an international bestseller, Schulman’s novel is extraordinary in its structure […] An entrancing, gripping read.”
Booklist (US)

“A novel of family dysfunction that veers into startling and original territory.”
Kirkus, starred review (US)

“A bleak and beautiful tale of a shattered family and one terrible summer.”
Literary Hub, CrimeReads (US)

“Searing […] Schulman writes in an understated prose and has an intuitive feel for the subtleties of gesture and memory. […] the author’s skills with character development are undeniable.”
Publishers Weekly (US)

“Twists the hearts until is breaks at the edges.”
Borås Tidning (SE)

“Arresting.”
Sveriges Radio, Kulturnytt P4 (SE)

“Schulman has his pain and knows how to use it, and does so in a perfect pitch.”
Helsingsborgs Dagblad (SE)

“This is a novel that is highly readible – the author makes me remember my own childhood: the emotion and experience of it. I can literally feel the scent of the mother’s pasties slowly defrosting in the car. […] The language is beautiful and the story is dark, while also deeply heartfelt. Let’s hope there will be many novels to come.”
Tranås-Posten (SE)

“This is a story with brilliantly depicted scenes. We are fully present – at the house by the lake, on the paths through the forest, among the birds and the insects, in the play of the light. There is an almost antiquated rhythm to the nature destructions, which brings to mind the writing of Pär Lagerkvist or Harry Martinson. And then there is the low-intensive, psychological drama that is constantly alive between these five damaged souls. At its worst, the brothers band together, but just as often they are played against one another. Schulman allows his scenes to take time, interjects new details slowly. Above all, he has an ear for dialog. I often find it surprising how many novelists let their characters sound the same; in Schulman’s book on the other hand, the lines always reflect the speaker. He creates a truly dark image of a family. Yes, the violence and the humiliation are arresting, but just as harrowing is how the parents appear steeped in total indifference. The children seem to see themselves only as a burden. They have developed different strategies to survive that realization. […] This may be the beginning of an important authorship.”
Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“Schulman’s literary prowess is indisputable. […] The children’s abandonment is depicted with linguistic sensitivity – but without concealing the brutality. […] Death is constantly present. It prowls in the shadows, extends its hand, retracts it. In this movement a vibrating and terrifying suspense arises, which finally explodes and hurls the brothers into a life defined by alienation and trauma.”
Aftonbladet (SE)

“In several books, Alex Schulman has skillfully depicted an auto-ficitonal tale of a dysfunctional family rife with addiction, violence and love. The Survivors uses similar material, but now in pure fiction, without auto-pilot. The story gains from it, the reader is invited into the narrative in an entirely new way; the novel skillfully draws on the reader’s own childhood, their own terror, in order to compel the story forward.”
Sveriges Radio, Kulturnytt P1 (SE)

“Schulman has his painful pressure points and knows exactly how to use them. […] He is tremendously good at telling a story that grabs hold.”
Sydsvenskan (SE)

“Damn elegant. The story is saturated with drama, but Schulman works just as much with small details, everyday occurrences that appear inconsequential for an outsider but which become lasting, razor sharp memories for a child. […] However rooted in his own biography he may be, Alex Schulman is clearly sliding into a more free fictional prose. Between the lines we glimpse an author with his gaze set on the horizon, ready for the next step. I am curious where that will take him.”
Svenska Dagbladet (SE)

“Schulman uses sound, light, and the boys’ memories of an early summer in order to depict the terror that breaks out between the brothers when they splash in the water and the shore seems to disappear. In this moment, Schulman has an exact pitch in every sentence. I experience their strokes in the water heavy as death and the angst the brothers feel is also mine. […] The chapters about the boys’ childhood are the book’s strength, its nerve. In those scenes, Schulman wants much and throws everything down. His soul? That is how it feels at times, and it is worthy of great admiration. […]. What surprises me most is Schulman’s ability to make the world appear a little bit bigger. He moves borders, travels through time.”
Expressen (SE)

“Schulman is a master at depicting mood and emotional pitch. His vulnerability strikes like a dagger to the heart. […] The story’s dramatic crescendo, the explanation for a life of self-loathing and bottomless angst for our protagonist Benjamin, leaves me as a reader in a state of acute shock. But maybe that is what good literature should achieve.”
Alingsås Tidning (SE)

“Schulman is quite simply a master of portraying emotions and at making the immediacy of the text run through your body like an electrical shock.”
Tidningen Vi (SE)

“Alex Schulman skillfully navigates through a vulnerable adolescence. His writing is emotionally arresting, it’s impossible to resist.”
Ingalill Mosander, Aftonbladet (SE)

“The Survivors is a book about longing and uncertain love, about adult betrayal, about brothers who take on a parent’s responsibility in protecting and caring for each other […] It is also a book that balances on the razor thin edge of melodrama, without tipping over.”
NRK (NO)

“Empathic and searing about the trauma caused by self-absorbed parents. … [The Survivors] is sensuous and intense, written in the third person singular and with a point of view that lies close to Benjamin, packed with captivating scenes and a composition that executes the cinematic oscillation between the past and present well. […] A vulnerable family tragedy about parents who betray, and children who get life-threatening mental wounds, yet survive.”
Stavanger Aftenblad, 5/6 Stars (NO)

“A clever family drama with vitality and nerve. […] As a reader, I experience this book as highly visual: the portrayal lends much from the language of cinema. The unfolding of the events that shaped the characters are intriguingly laid out, as in a clever thriller but without the expectancy of sudden death and murder à la Nordic noir. The focus of the narrative is kept very narrow. We never learn what becomes of the brothers, what jobs they take, or what the parents do for a living. The entire propulsion of the story remains within the scope of the family’s inner workings, something that remarkably causes the pages to turn themselves.”
Adresseavisen, 5/6 Stars (NO)

“The Survivors is a very surprising novel. […] Throughout The Survivors Schulman showcases his delicate ability as an observer and his strength as a writer. His method is to draw up scenes and then dissect them afterwards. […] The level of truth is established in a way that beautifully fits into the contemporary way of molding literature after real life. What’s so remarkable about this novel is how childhood trauma hits you even harder in the novel form than when you hear Schulman himself talk about it. With The Survivors, Schulman proves how literary tales exceed the ‘strong’ stories of real life.”
 Morgenbladet (NO)

“Alex Schulman has chosen to tell a heartfelt and dark family drama in The Survivors – a novel that earns its title. To be clear: At his best, we see in Alex Schulman the contours of one of the best Nordic writers of today. The story about the family – the three brothers, the increasingly alcoholic mother, the father who comes and goes – becomes a sort of chamber play at the cottage, gradually alternating to life in the city apartment. It hurts and is pressingly dense, with the constant threat that something will come crashing down. Or rather someone: the mother or the father, the ones who are supposed to protect you in this life. […] Schulman also elegantly shows how there are different stories, truths, and realities within the three brothers as the story progresses – and regresses. […] This is one hell of a wonderful novel. […] The images that Schulman paints are exceptionally beautiful. […] Schulman can deliver these linguistic images without ever making them seem too much or pretentious, never affected or constructed.”
Bok 365 (NO)

“Oh, how it hurts! The poor children! And the poor parents! The Survivors is a brilliant psychological drama about bottomless grief that spreads like a poison until all love has been obliterated and only violent and unbearable loneliness remains.”
Jyllandsposten, 5/6 Stars (DK)

“Best book of the year? Swedish writer Alex Schulman’s novel The Survivors may be the book that has given me the most profound reading experience this year. In a very long time, actually. Honestly, I sobbed my way through the novel’s last pages. […] The Survivors is a fantastic book.”
Femina, 6/6 Stars (DK)

“Alex Schulman is brilliant and impresses with one of this year’s biggest reading experiences, and I dare say that even though it’s just the beginning of the year. […] This is a gut-punch of a novel about innocence, loneliness, repression, and fragile family dynamics. The pieces fall into place late in the novel – in a single sentence. Perhaps it must be read a few times before it sinks in. My reaction was literally to throw the book in the air! It actually felt like when you get burned and react instinctively! […] The Survivors is reminiscent of Norwegian writer Carl Frode Tiller’s eminent novel Beginnings, which was nominated for the Nordic Council Prize in Literature in 2016. This novel is made of the same calibre and is also a worthy candidate for the prize.”
Litteratursiden (DK)

“Swedish journalist and author Alex Schulman directs the drama The Survivors with an impressive sense for suspense and shifts in scenes. The story of three men who were once children in the same dysfunctional family keeps its secrets so close that reading it evolves into an intense close scrutiny. […] But it is not the narrative technique that ends in an ambush of blinking blue lights that is what’s most remarkable about Schulman’s novel – the veiled tragedy becomes almost too surprising. Instead, it is his fine ear for dissonance, for distant death. […] The novel rises to a breathtaking story of one family’s disintegrating microbiology, while nature’s own microbiology decays in turn. […] Ominous, grandiose – beautiful.”
Politiken, 5/6 Stars (DK)

“It has been long since I was this hooked by a novel. Here are four reasons why The Survivors ought to be the holiday read of 2021. The first reason is the most difficult to reveal without giving away the genius plot. […] The second reason is the craftsmanship. The narrative shifts smoothly between present and past. […] An then the third reason: Schulman can write. […] Beautiful scenes that are authentic and spot on can be found on every page. […] Finally, reason four: the interplay of genres. What starts out as a seemingly relaxing holiday read quickly evolves into a bildungsroman that focuses on the universal function and (more than you would like) dysfunction of a family. […] The end result is a chilling cocktail of loneliness, solipsism, and yet also of diffusive empathy.”
De Standaard (NL)

“The Survivors is not just another coming of age drama about a family plagued by alcohol abuse and aggression. It is more subtle: each son deals in his own way with what must be a very confusing upbringing and when they are adults their paths cross or run parallel, but in the smallest actions there are traces of the past and of an unspoken tragedy. With an effortlessness that is enviable, this 45-years-old Swede proves that you don’t need a kilogram of paper to write an in-depth family chronicle. […] More than one scene from The Survivors will stay with the reader forever. Never again will you look at a fish in a frying pan in the same way, or a transformer cabinet, or a cooling swim in a lake. The not-a-word-too-much-or-too-little style reminiscent of Julian Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending, the nostalgia of Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety. With The Survivors Schulman proves in his own way that not only can literature satisfy escapist hunger, but also bring it ruthlessly close to reality.”
Humo (NL)

“You will definitely be hooked by this tragic and sophisticated novel by Alex Schulman, about the loss of a family.”
Tzum (NL)

“Alex Schulman’s first novel, The Survivors, is off to a brilliant start: multilayered, psychologically accurate, formally compelling. With a bright ending.”
WDR (DE)

“Haunting. Extraordinary.”
Die Presse (DE)

“Like shuffling a deck of playing cards, one card from each side of the split story deck is placed on top of the last card from the other side until the deck is complete. This approach is not only of compelling clarity, but at the same time is captivating in a very claustrophobic way. Schulman describes the children’s exposure to the whims of adults, the lack of care, the sense of isolation in the summer home away from civilization so intensely that he narratively destroys all traditional clichés of glorious childlike free play in nature. […] The strength of Schulman’s first “real” novel, apart from its high awareness of form, lies precisely in its emotional authenticity, probably in the underlying autobiographical background.”
Taz (DE)

“How to survive the worst that can happen in a family? A painful, exceptionally cleverly composed story that you will not forget. In gently circling movements, the author approaches the all-important moment – until at the very end all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.”
Bremen Zwei (DE)

“Schulman paints a portrait of society without accusation or reckoning. His sensitive depictions of the brothers and the landscape are absolutely captivating!“
Kölnische Rundschau (DE)

“The force and nuances of feeling Alex Schulman creates are breathtaking. […] It might seem dark and gloomy, which it is in part. But The Survivors by Alex Schulman is a brilliant novel about a family, intense and totally magnetic. It uncovers adult ineptitude and the nuance of children’s fear; their dissatisfied longing and their sometimes playful, sometimes relentless, competition. […] A difficult life is portrayed with great sensitivity, laconic in language, but at the same time Schulman elicits dreamlike images with such exuberant force that causes the pain of rejection to suddenly spread through the mind and seize the body with a fear that makes everything freeze. It’s with a kind of magical Scandinavian realism that the author portrays the fear of these three boys under the mighty treetops […] Rarely has it been so impressively described how infinitely lost a child can feel after having taken a wrong turn. Fear can become overwhelming in one’s imagination, and here, fantasy and reality sometimes blur into near psychedelic imagery – instantly recognizable by anyone who has ever felt truly afraid. The storytelling is insatiably alluring, the stories about this dysfunctional and at the same time ordinary family are intricately connected in a psychologically weave – and there is always new danger looming. Or even just a call for dinner. […] There must be a dark secret somewhere that has marked this family’s life. ‘Whatever happened to us’, asks one of the brothers. Where does this conflict stem from? But that is exactly what defines Schulman’s art, how he casually imbues horror into everyday life, and through it exposes the slippery slope of the human soul.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung (DE)

“Brilliant. […] Yes, this is a dark Scandinavian novel. And yet it has its brighter moments, until the surprising end, because love is a tough plant that can also survive the Nordic winter.”
Brigitte Magazine (DE)

“Well-constructed and precisely told. […] That this #1 bestseller from Sweden now is being published by publishing houses in 31 countries is excellent. Schulman smashes the Bullerby idyll of a Swedish summer very subtly in the beginning – and in the end with full force. He handles his protagonists with empathy at all times, even the cold and sometimes mean mother is never exposed but shown as a victim of her own inability. Delicately and with precise style Schulman portrays what happens to children who are defenseless against their parents and this world. And how the absence of love creates a black hole that grows until it devours everything.”
Der Spiegel (DE)

“Everything he touches turns into gold. Swedish bestselling author Alex Schulman has turned his pain into a novel with a therapeutic effect, also for his readers.”
Donna (DE)

“Sophisticated in its labyrinthian construction, yet easily accessible as a whole, The Survivors – which shows how ‘no one escapes childhood unscathed’ – should be placed alongside the great stories that teach us that from pain is born the strength to live. Magnificent.”
La Provence (FR)

“Delivered in rich and poetic writing, this is an ominous novel with an ingenious construction that you must put aside so as not to miss the pleasure of reading it again…”
Le Dauphiné (FR)

“Trees quiver and so do we, because with this precise and electrifying first novel, Alex Schulman has succeeded to pique our interest with infernal and captivating curiosity.”
Figaro Madame (FR)

“A distinct Swedish flavor permeates the setting, but the emotions of childhood – the joy, the secrecy and fear, the enthusiasms and the drama – are universal.”
Centre France (FR)

“Alex Schulman distills a poison in the heart of a flawed paradise, throwing the reader into this climate of instability, between the joy of the proposed games – and their perversity.”
L’Echo (FR)

“Alex Schulman’s first novel shines: first and foremost in style, and in the poignant love of a sibling who has not received the love of his parents. The final twist, the nature of the game, literally forces the reader to start over and read from the beginning. It’s unique.”
Le Figaro Magazine (FR)

“Alex Schulman, the author of this fascinating new novel and who is acclaimed throughout northern Europe, has chosen to cultivate the mystery, to lose us in a labyrinth of emotions and perceptions… literally to the very end. […] He takes us back to the beginning of the novel and urges us to see it in a new light. A novel and its twin: Alex Schulman is a magician of a writer.”
Les Echos (FR)

“This is an incredible story. The passion! The elusiveness! These young, endearing, intelligent lovers… and then the tyrant Stolpe, who acts like a prison guard between them! A mediocre writer would have trusted that the story itself would be enough, no matter how you put it in writing. But not Schulman. He writes with clarity, transparency, and purpose in the best of ways, and with a great sensitivity for building a story with small means. […] A pleasure to read.”
Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“A feverish hunt for the truth about Sven and, above all, about his grandmother Karin Stolpe that soon turns into one of the most beautiful and painful love stories that I have read in a long time. […] It is beautiful, it is sad, but above all it feels incredibly true. Grandmother Karin can stand straight and proud in her heaven.”
Sveriges Radio Kulturnytt (SE)

“Endlessly thrilling. […] This is a story about fierce passion, great love, and a fury that is both long-lived and dark. […] Schulman sets the scene, and with stylistically delicately means he constructs a compelling story. […] Burn All My Letters rings true, the kind of truth that transcends the blurry borderland between memoir and fiction. […] [Schulman] writes as if his life depended on it – every time.”
Expressen (SE)

“Schulman alternates between grand, tragic romance and his own hunt for truth in the archives – he is fortunate to be part of a family whose notes, journals, and works have been preserved for posterity. In between, we follow his childhood self visiting grandma and grandpa in 1988, and these are the best parts of the book, stylistically. The atmosphere – quickly shifting between warm, hot, cold, thrilling, and threatening, yet from the point of view of a teenager somehow familiar and comfortable – is extremely skillfully captured. […] I hope that he continues to write with the same heart and sincerity.”
Aftonbladet (SE)

“[Alex Schulman] proves himself to be a far better writer than his grandfather in his endeavour for insight, about himself as well as others. His story about how the passionate love between Karin and Olof came to an end but – as letters and other sources prove – never faded, is gripping and powerful.
Borås Tidning (SE)

“At the core of the novel is the ‘sexual attack’ on Sven Stolpe, as he himself described it, in the summer of 1932. In the hands of Schulman, this so-called attack becomes a sad and beautiful love story.”
Göteborgs-Posten (SE)

“I eagerly follow Schulman’s winding road backwards through time. His style is distinct and he elegantly builds his narrative in three timelines. He is at his very best when he is writing about that which is self-experienced, in the chapters set in 1988. Burn All My Letters is an extremely enjoyable read, gripping, and thrilling in its own, subdued way.”
Uppsala Nya Tidning (SE)

“A captivating read.”
Mittmedia (SE)

“An incredibly fine novel.”
SVT Babel (SE)

“Out of all of Alex Schulman’s strong books, Burn All My Letters is the strongest one. What a love story! What a love tragedy! What a life drama! […] Burn All My Letters is a book of many genres, and it’s quite simply genious. It might seem worrysome to let the chapters vary between fiction, verbatim quotes from letters and diary entries, Alex Schulman’s own memories from the summers spent with his grandparents, and detailed insights into his own reflections and analysis, but it’s not. On the contrary. It increases the suspense and strenghtens the empathy enourmously […] Burn All My Letters is a phenomenally good book about a cursed family secret and the devastating poision that has trickled down through many generations.”
Jyllands-Posten, 6/6 stars (DK)

“Alex Schulman – famous media personality, journalist, podcaster, and author – has with his three autofictional novels [Forget Me, Burn All My Letters and The Survivors] knocked me off my feet. Rarely have I read something in this genre that has caught my attention and interest so intensely. […] The Survivors is the most recent of these three books, but it was the first one to reach a Danish audience. The books are not intended as a trilogy, but they work perfectly well as a whole. In fact, it is even a small gift to us [Danish readers] that we get Burn All My Letters as the culmination instead of the beginning. Like a spotlight that sheds light on the past and explains the present, this book is simply genius. […] Burn All My Letters is a complete novel (that will premiere as a feature film in September starring Bill Skarsgård as Sven, Asta Kamma August as Karin, and Gustav Lindh as Olof). As a dual portrait of the two fighting men it is culturally and historically interesting in itself. As a marriage story it is sad. And as Alex Schulman’s dissection of his family’s wrongdoings, it is an actual reconciliation: both his own rage and his mother’s alcoholism stem from Sven Stolpe. As you can tell, Alex Schulman’s books are part of the great Nordic tradition of autofiction. Here, the relationship between author and reader is founded in a combination of trust and doubt, and I’m not able to say in what capacity the authentic gives way for pure fiction, if it ever does so. Of course, there’s always staging and (re)construction. His literary method is by no means groundbreaking, but it is superbly executed. Memories, therapy, research, archival finds, documentarism, fictionalization – together they make up a remarkably successful auto-confrontation. […] In Forget Me, Alex Schulman began to dig in his family’s deception for the first time. In Burn All My Letters he continues to uncover taboos and traumas. And in The Survivors everything culminates with a dark and magnificent depth when three adult sons converge at the family’s desolate cottage to spread their mother’s ashes. […] The three books are at once independent and inherently connected – complete like the people they portray. Through his study of the destructive powers of rage, Alex Schulman has uncovered how an identity emerges by detaching itself from psychological bonds. It is both painful, liberating, and literarily excellent.”
Weekendavisen (DK)

“Schulman has previously written about his relationship to his alcoholic mother in the critically acclaimed autobiographical book Forget Me, and Burn All My Letters stands out with the same pure, unsentimental tone, and a subdued suspense that ought to make this book the (unhappy) love story of the year. […] Bittersweet and captivating about a woman who yields to the whims of her husband and lives a life of shame and shamed love.”
Berlingske (DK)

“Schulman’s language is confident and sparse, and he is extremely good at telling a story. […] What’s most important is that Schulman succeeds in constructing an interesting portrayal of a love affair in the upper layers of the Swedish cultural elite, where physical violence is ever present. The characters are complex and even the thoroughly evil Sven Stople, who has his own childhood traumas, is peculiarly enchanting, while the story of grandma Karin Stolpe could carry the novel all in its own right. […] A painfully stunning tale about a love that never really lasted yet never really died.”
Dagbladet Information (DK)

“With great linguistic passion and tenderness, Schulman uncovers a fateful summer romance with the gentle brushstrokes of an archaeologist. The reader is left with grief and a little heartache about having to leave ‘the land that never was’.”
POV International (DK)

“His book is not a thriller, and yet it could not be more exciting.”
Stern (DE)

“With Burn All My Letters Alex Schulman has succeeded in writing a moving book that is not only grippingly told, but also shows how deeply a misfortune can be perpetuated over generations and that there are ways to leave it behind.”
WDR 3, Lesestoff (DE)

“Alex Schulman has written a powerful and very personal book about the tightrope walk between emotion and convention.”
Nürnberger Nachrichten (DE)

“Written full of compassion and tenderness for his grandmother, this passionate love story is simply a touching, beautifully readable true story.”
Kleine Zeitung (DE)

“Nobody but Alex Schulman manages to write about feelings in such a passionate and honest way. Highly emotional, sensitive and soulful. A wonderful book.”
Kieler Magazin (DE)

“The deeper one delves into this triangle drama on the way to disaster, the more oppressive it becomes. Also because it is a mixture between fact and fiction.“
WDR 5 (DE)

“This is incredibly good.
Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“Skillfully portrayed, Schulman takes us very close to the pain.”
Svenska Dagbladet (SE)

“Sad and moving.”
Expressen (SE)

“Heart-breaking, clear-sighted, and powerful.”
Aftonbladet (SE)

“Straightforward, honest, and emotional from start to finish.”
Upsala Nya Tidning (SE)

“An incredibly sad book, but also unusually moving.”
Hufvudstadsbladet (FI)

“Forget Me is not just a therapeutic project where the author comes to terms with himself and his childhood. The book will without a doubt be a comfort to anyone with the same background, and give greater understanding to those of us who are fortunate enough to have a different story.”
Jyllands-Posten (DK)

“Schulman writes with care about a toxic and tormented mother, without ever making it too heavy to take part of and – be it autofiction or not – that’s no minor feat.”
Politiken (DK)

“It’s fully understandable that Forget Me was named Book of the Year in Sweden in 2017. Firstly, the book is convincingly well-written, and secondly, it fits perfectly into a tradition of recently published books where children confront their parents and/or their childhood. This is about a son’s relationship to his alcoholic mother. […] Forget Me is highly recommendable, but not for the faint-hearted.”
Kristeligt Dagblad (DK)

“A grand, poignant book, written with searing finesse.”
Femina (DK)

“Forget Me is a complex declaration of love from a son to his mother. It is also a tale of atonement, and of the labor of forgiving a person who has forgotten: who cannot apologize for what she does not remember herself.”
Information (DK)

“A brilliant portrayal of what it’s like to become a spectator of a loved one who ruins their life through addiction.”
Magasinet Liv (DK)

“A fine portrayal of the double nature of family, both warm and captivating.”
– Aftonbladet

“Well-written and captivating.”
– Dagens Nyheter

“Alex Schulman is a very powerful and unusual writer because he is so very empathetic and self-revealing (…) Schulman is sharp and observant.”
Västerbottens Folkblad (SE)

“Alex Schulman has done it again – written a novel from his heart.”
S-Bladet (SE)

“This is a book filled with love, thoughts and reflections.  Alex Schulman writes in a beautiful way how he changes through his love for another, his wife Amanda. […] He writes well and with ease.”
Mariestads-Tidningen (SE)

“Memorable and romantic.”
Östran (SE)

“Schulman is not afraid of making fun of himself, and to write about what is embarrassing and weak. At the same time he has a sense of pace and tone. It’s very pleasant to follow this unpretentious and elegant contemporary writer.”
Nina Lekander, Expressen (SE)

“Schulman dares to be brutally self-revealing. Laid bare are both his desperation and mad love for Amanda. It’s a sweet love story. And a very funny one: I giggle, and even laugh out loud.”
Kattis & Company (SE)

“Moving without being sentimental. There’s a genuine warmth and humor.”
Östgöta-Corren (SE)

“Romance, anxiousness, deep love. When love enters Alex Schulman’s life, everything changes. His light pen and the delightful narrative makes it easy to become caught up.”
Allas (SE)

“For days I’ve been wandering around in agony, there is something dark about me, and I find I must keep telling my family how much I love them. It is the Schulman-effect. It is Malma Station’s fault. […] The story about a family where silence and absence are inherited is heartbreaking. The unbearable loneliness that children can carry, well into adulthood, gets too close. It gives you no peace. But it also calls for responsibility because it is possible to break with the silent heritage. It must be.”
Greta Schüldt, Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“A deeply touching novel that targets your heart. But then again, he writes about something that he masters completely – family secrets. With obliterating clarity and great tenderness he portrays people who are connected through family ties, and what life does to them. About betrayal, faithlessness, and open wounds that are inherited through generations. One of this fall’s great reading experiences.”
Ingalill Mosander, Aftonbladet (SE)

“At times during the reading of Malma Station I am completely stunned by how merciless a child’s marginalization can be. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic event per se, even if Schulman always spices up his novels with unexpected drastic and bizarre incidents – and Malma Station is no exception. But it can be enough with a fleeting, seemingly innocent comment, whose unfathomable consequence Schulman depicts with his essential, clean prose in a way that sends shivers down the spine.”
Therese Eriksson, Dagens Nyheter (SE)

“I don’t make it further than the scene with the squirrel on page fifteen before I want to put my forehead to the table and cry. Don’t ask me why. But there is something about how Alex Schulman just at the very start of his new novel Malma Station lets a girl remember a squirrel that sits extremely still and a father’s comment that pushes me into such a desolate feeling. […] When Alex Schulman is at his best he writes the desolation of life, and everyone’s inability to handle it, with dignity and a light hand, as if in passing. In Malma Station, this ability carries the entire book. […] No, what makes Malma Station Alex Schulman’s best book so far is the elegant balance between the personal and the universal.”
Göteborgs-Posten (SE)

“One thing I really like about Alex Schulman’s authorship is that he always stands on the side of the child. Sure, there are often reasons to why adults act the way they do, but it’s the way this affects the child in its dependency that he portrays which such skill. I also really enjoy his sensibility for the tiny and intimate details. Alex Schulman’s strength as an author lies in his rare ability to, in just a few sentences, concretely capture a situation or an event and deliver it to the reader, without ever being too obvious or coarse.”
Borås Tidning (SE)

“It’s the longing to find out the details that propels this novel forward in true page-turning fashion, but Shulman’s skill as a storyteller is not the only takeaway from this novel. The perceived parental betrayal, the subject matter Schulman constantly revolves around, is here portrayed just as elusive as it is. It is possible for parents to love their children and still behave badly, and to children it is nearly impossible not to love their parents – even when they don’t deserve it. From that dynamic can both pain and atonement be born, and not rarely – as with Schulman – both exist at the same time.”
Sydsvenskan (SE)

“Few writers have Alex Schulman’s eye for a child’s vulnerability and singular sensibility. […] Schulman is such a genuine and natural storytelling talent. Even though the structure is at times unwieldy the story is propelled forward by a narrative voice that has a rare ability to capture and maintain the reader’s interest. It is difficult to put this novel down. The gaze, or the perfect pitch, for the child’s marginalization and inner world makes this novel deeply moving.”
Svenska Dagbladet (SE)

“Malma Station is a cleverly told family mystery. It is thrilling, uneasy, juicy, easy to read and at times incredibly beautiful.”
Arbetet (SE)

“The novel has something important to say through its broken form. That we are joined together across generational borders. That personal flaws are inherited, and thus aren’t that personal after all. Or that the passing of time in a way is illusory. A chronological story would hide this, and it would also be forced to decide which of the characters is the most important. Schulman gives equal weight to all three of them. In a way, this is a humanistic, in fact democratic novel. The shifting perspectives convey a loyalty with the people involved. They are allowed to speak up with all their quirks and faults, which makes you understand them in the end, even the at the start annoying Harriet. It is both elegant and effective.”
Aftonbladet (SE)

“Alex Schulman’s new novel should be read as a fluid, unreliable memory landscape. It is at its best when it moves away from demands of realism and illuminates scenes with a dreamlike glow […] The risks [Schulman] takes makes this a truly fine novel.”
Expressen (SE)

“Schulman has polished his excellent language further, and really put hard work into the plot. […] It is elegantly executed.”
Sveriges Radio (SE)

“As always, Alex Schulman’s style is impeccable, and it has evolved beautifully throughout his novels. Schulman has the ability to put his finger on the soft spots of humanity and twist them around a few painful turns. This is a novel with low intensity that touches upon matters of high relatability. A reading experience that stays with you.”
Fönstret (SE)

“[Schulman’s] authorship remains loyal with the child. Time after time, he bears witness of an adult world that fails. […] Even though this is fiction with an elaborate novel structure, there is so much of Alex Schulman himself in these characters. […] When you sense that the pain stems from his own experiences […] is when the novel shines at its brightest.”
Falu-Kuriren (SE)

“This is not a feel-good read… but it’s good! As a reader, you’re captivated by Alex Schulman’s sense of detail and his ability to convey emotional and sensatory impressions in an incredibly beautiful and inspired prose. […] Don’t miss it!”
Alingsås Tidning (SE)

“Alex Schulman writes his characters with great tenderness and his sense for details and atmosphere has a magnetic effect. […] Many scenes are incredibly poignant. […] Schulman is at his best when it comes to mood and the portrayal of the ordinary.”
Norrbottens-Kuriren (SE)

“You’re pulled into the story that holds family secrets, absent parents, betrayal, and children who get hurt in different ways. Alex Schulman’s prose is efficient and Malma Station is a great reading experience, not least when he writes from the child’s perspective.”
Ölandsbladet (SE)

“It is insanely admirable, that he can write so sharply and unsentimentally about the emotions that would either set fire to a person or make freeze him to death.”
Jyllands-Posten (DK)

“Swedish writer Alex Schulman has a strong sense for life’s most fragile moments. He proved it in the three deeply moving novels The Survivors, Forget Me and Burn All My Letters, which all uncovered poison from the dark side of the author’s family. Now, in the freely fictional Malma Station, he once again, quite superbly, circles around the situations where life suddenly changes from one state to another […] Alex Schulman has once again written an ingenious novel about the secret sore spots in a family, based upon the Ibsenian core question of the consequences of truth.”
Weekendavisen (DK)

“There’s no need to fawn with superlatives: Alex Schulman has done it again with his razor-sharp portrayal of vulnerable family relationships […] Schulman is possibly better than ever!”
Litteratursiden (SE)

“There is a sparseness to the sentences, a playful richness to the imagery, a rhythm and, at the same time, a tragic drama of everyday life.”
Information (DK)

“It is yet again a claustrophobic and captivating novel, which enters into areas of the human mind that are not always pleasant to be in.”
Kulturkapellet (DK)

“As always, Alex Schulman is an absolute master at portraying both parts, so that you sit super engaged holding your breath. A moving reading experience with a complex cast of characters.”
Femina/Søndag (DK)

“It is strong and moving, and Malma Station is a novel that touches you deeply. […] Malma Station is an intense and urgent reading experience, and Schulman is an author you can only look forward to reading more from.”
Berlingske (DK)

“One of Sweden’s best.”
Euroman/Heartbeats (DK)

“Few male authors manage to portray women as well as they portray men, as Schulman does. Few are able to spin such an intricate web as he does in Malma Station, unraveling the threads in the right order and at the right pace to keep the reader’s emotions dynamic from start to finish. Words and sentences that are unclear to the characters in the story become startlingly clear to the reader, because the reader is given access to bits of the story that the characters don’t know. My heart races, I get shortness of breath and chills down my spine. Occasionally, a small laugh escapes me because of an episode that begins tragicomically but quickly ends in pure tragedy. […]  The slow yet deeply intense story of the lives of Harriet, Oskar and Yana is one of the most painful I have ever read. The conflicts in the story and the outcome of the conflicts are like nothing else. ‘Childhood is an inexplicable installation, like a modern work of art’, Oskar thinks. At least it is when an author of Schulman’s caliber writes about it, and let me emphasize work of art.”
Dagbladet (NO)