Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Andrev Walden is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and columnist who has worked for Dagens Nyheter and Aftonbladet. In 2017, he became the first columnist to be nominated for the Swedish Grand Prize for journalism, praised for his ability to ‘find the everyday drama in the big questions’, and to make us ‘laugh and see the world, the family and ourselves in a new and slightly wiser light’. He lives in Stockholm. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is his first novel.A LITTLE TREASURE OF A BOOK. Hilarious but vulnerable, clever but raw, and pure joyous storytelling on every page. You’ll come for the laughs, but you’ll stay for the love letter, from a grown man to his boy self, promising everything will be all right
Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove
'I challenge you not to fall in love with Andrev as he thrashes doggedly through life - perpetually hopeful and inept. This is a small gem of a novel, with an irresistible voice and a teasing sidelong wit
Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now
This is a truly special novel. A delight from start to finish. Captures the joy and pain of being a teenager perfectly. I adored Andrev and already miss him
Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
What a book! I laughed, cried, despaired and hoped for this young boy negotiating seven fathers in seven chaotic years, taking us with him for the wild ride. A story that reads this easily with consummate fluidity, pace and comic timing deserves the widest audience possible
Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness
Darkly funny, and comically tragic. An absolute gem. I loved it
Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground
In a perfect balance between levity and sadness, Andrev Walden depicts a boy's attempt to come to terms with a life where fathers are constantly replaced. <i>Bloody Awful in Different Ways</i> is a humorous examination of a different kind of childhood, which, despite the pervasive blackness, is portrayed with an inexhaustible warmth and presence
August Prize Judges
Outstanding literature. Shamelessly entertaining
Sydsvenskan
An incredible account of growing up
Ann-Helen Laestadius, author of Stolen
Through Walden's precise and evocative language, we are invited into a young boy’s observations of the world and his journey into manhood. A sharply critical view of the male-dominated world is interwoven with tender portrayals of how a person is shaped by their relationships. It becomes unmistakably clear how vulnerable and strong we are in relation to one another. I laugh, I ache, and I reflect as I read Walden’s book
Lisa Ridzén, author of When the Cranes Fly South
Walden makes both trivialities and atrocities sparkle
Aftonbladet
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE AUGUST PRIZE 2023
'Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like' Daily Telegraph
I’m fizzing. I love not being his son.
Yes. I can feel it in my whole body. A great thrill – as if an adventure has begun. As if I’m the boy in a book about a boy who finds out his dad is the king of a magical and distant land.
Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame – but even she can’t control how they behave.
Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.
‘Pure joyous storytelling on every page … A little treasure of a book’ Fredrick Backman
'A delight from start to finish' Jennie Godfrey
'Flawless ... So sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed' Guardian