Collected Works: A Novel
Martin Berg is slowly falling into crisis. Decades ago, he was an aspiring writer who'd almost finished his novel, his girlfriend was the shockingly intelligent and beautiful Cecilia Wickner, and his best friend was the up-and-coming artist Gustav Becker. But Martin's manuscript has long been languishing in a desk drawer, Gustav has stopped answering his calls, and Cecilia has been missing for years. Not long after they were married, she vanished from his life and left him to raise their two young children alone.So who was Cecilia? Martin's eccentric wife, Gustav's enigmatic muse, an absent mother - a woman who was perhaps only true to herself. When Martin's daughter Rakel stumbles across a clue about what happened to her mother, she becomes determined to fill in the gaps in her family's story.Collected Works is a captivating, characterful and witty novel that asks searching questions about motherhood, family relationships, the stories that we tell ourselves and those that we inherit.
Lydia Sandgren is the eldest of seven siblings brought up in the west of Sweden. She has studied music, philosophy, and is a practising psychologist today, living in Gothenburg. Collected Works is her debut novel; it won the highly prestigious August Prize in 2020 and has sold over 100,000 copies.
Author: Lydia Sandgren
Format: Hardback, 736 pages, 153mm x 234mm
Published: 2023, Pushkin Press, United Kingdom
Genre: General & Literary Fiction
Martin Berg is slowly falling into crisis. Decades ago, he was an aspiring writer who'd almost finished his novel, his girlfriend was the shockingly intelligent and beautiful Cecilia Wickner, and his best friend was the up-and-coming artist Gustav Becker. But Martin's manuscript has long been languishing in a desk drawer, Gustav has stopped answering his calls, and Cecilia has been missing for years. Not long after they were married, she vanished from his life and left him to raise their two young children alone.So who was Cecilia? Martin's eccentric wife, Gustav's enigmatic muse, an absent mother - a woman who was perhaps only true to herself. When Martin's daughter Rakel stumbles across a clue about what happened to her mother, she becomes determined to fill in the gaps in her family's story.Collected Works is a captivating, characterful and witty novel that asks searching questions about motherhood, family relationships, the stories that we tell ourselves and those that we inherit.
Lydia Sandgren is the eldest of seven siblings brought up in the west of Sweden. She has studied music, philosophy, and is a practising psychologist today, living in Gothenburg. Collected Works is her debut novel; it won the highly prestigious August Prize in 2020 and has sold over 100,000 copies.