This is one of the gentlest books I have ever read, and it is a book which is going to break your heart, oh so gently, but it will crack your heart, probably repeatedly.
For a debut novel, it is a triumph. For a translation, a double triumph. I am blown away by how understated this novel is, it is all showing and no telling at all. No doubt this is in part a very beautiful resonance of the Swedish culture and the Swedish way of communicating, and it is utterly charming in this novel.
The novel is organised in chapters headed with dates, from May to October. The protagonist is Bo, a very old man, whose beloved wife Frederika whom he spends most of the novel addressing, has been taken away to a care home because of her dementia. Bo himself needs looking after now. The dates are probably the ones in the log book that is kept by the 4 rotating carers who come in several times daily to look after Bo, get him food, ensure he takes his medications, help him change and bathe. The log entries are so practical, and in themselves, also rather charming – a listing of foods given, checks made, and a few words about Bo’s state of mind as well as physical condition. For example:
“5.15 pm. Bo in bed, hasn’t touched his lunch. Reheated it for him and made tea, Took out some chocolate. Doesn’t seem to have much energy and still doesn’t want to shower. Ingrid”(p243).
Bo is not ill, as such, but he is much too frail to manage much on his own anymore. He can still walk, unsteadily, but struggles to take his beloved elkhound out for walks anymore. This is the point of contention with which the novel starts. When we first meet Bo, he is an angry man, thinking of cutting his only son, Hans, out of his will, because Hans wants to take Sixten the elkhound, away from Bo. Bo, a sawmill worker, is the kind of man who seems to have had a dog with him all his life. Sixten is his beloved companion, especially now his wife has been taken away. Hans wants to remove Sixten and send the dog to a family where he can be walked properly and looked after well, and also because Hans is afraid of his father falling again, taking the dog out for walks. Bo of course heartily disagrees with Hans, and their perceptions of risk are very divergent. There are no villains in this novel, but there is plenty of sorrow.
Bo’s carers are mostly good, some better than others, but all professional, and all looking after him competently, and some, even tenderly and with great understanding. Hans is a good son, although Bo gets so angry with him sometimes, mainly because Bo feels Hans is controlling his life – what he eats, wears, his dog, etc. But the novel also makes clear that Bo needs all this help and to this level, and Bo himself often indicates he is also aware of this fact, even if he resents it, and resents Han sometimes. But he is also deeply proud of Hans, worried about his well being, and very attached to Han’s daughter, Ellinor.
It is such a beautifully written novel about how it is to be that aged, that frail, that weary. Bo is often tired out even by the simplest things – microwaving his food, changing his clothes after wetting himself as he often does, even just sitting up is sometimes a massive effort. It is a novel which has such incredible empathy with what it feels like to be that advanced age, and have all one’s faculties and one’s body failing one, and to be fully aware of it. Bo knows he forgets many things, he knows and is sometimes frustrated with all he is now unable to do on his own. This novel demonstrates without ever saying so directly, that this stage of advanced aging is an assault on a person’s dignity. Bo is often ashamed – of all the help he needs, of his struggles, of wetting himself, etc. even though he knows he has done nothing wrong. But he is also unhappy, to be so reduced, and while grateful for such good care from professionals as well as his family, he is also frustrated because so much choice has been taken away from him, not by the people around him, but by his own frailties.
Mostly, Bo is stoical, not a man given to emotional displays, but clearly a man capable of great depth of attachment, mostly unexpressed. We also feel for Hans, who is struggling, with trying to do his best for his parents, while himself holding down a demanding job. Hans deals with the pragmatics, the practical needs of the situation, but cannot always do so in a way Bo prefers. Hans finally has Sixten taken away:
“Once the door closes behind them, the silence digs its claws into me. Tears and snot pour down my cheeks, catching in my beard and for a while it feel like I might actually suffocate. I gasp for air but what I really want is to stop breathing” (p222).
Ridzen is deeply authentic in the way she writes of how Bo misses his wife and also does not mourn her, not exactly. Frederika was clearly the love of his life, and they had a long and strong marriage. Frederika seemed to have understood Bo very well, and he was clearly so proud she chose him. But when she is taken away, he does not seem to want to visit her. Hans brings his father to visit his mother, and Bo goes, but not exactly willingly. It is natural perhaps, that he does not want to see her as she is now, a husk of herself, with no awareness anymore of who he is, or who Hans is. But his internal monologue throughout the book is addressed to her, he seems in continuous mental conversation with his wife even though she is no longer physically at home, nor even present in herself.
“It’s always there, the Sixten-shaped hole. A nothingness that has amplified the emptiness you left behind. T’s strange, but when Hans took Sixten, I started missing you even more. Almost as though it were you he’d taken.
My ears strain for the sound of claws on the floor, for a soft yawn. For the sound of your knitting needles, gently clicking together. But all I can hear is the hum of the fridge and the ticking of the clock” (p242).
This is typical of Ridzen’s understated style, which carries such a weight of feeling, and yet, so undramatically, so unsentimentally. It is also incredibly subtle with its understanding of how there can be transference of feelings, love, loyalties, sorrows, and how one loss can trigger the pain of another loss.
The novel also serges from Bo’s memories into his present seamlessly, and yet, never losing the reader. It is highly skilful writing, and also highly empathetic writing as to how the mind perhaps plays tricks with time, merging past and present, causing confusion and a sense of perpetual loss and displacement.
It is one of those unputdownable novels. For all its gentleness, it is fiercely gripping. If this is what Ridzen is capable of in a first novel, then I cannot wait to read her future writings. This is one of the most lyrical and elegiac novels on aging that I have ever read. It is also quite a masterpiece, not a word out of place, near perfection in its pace, timing, details, balance. I cannot recommend it enough.
When the Cranes Fly South
Lisa Ridzen
Vintage, 2025
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