Collected Works by Lydia Sandgren #1

From the back cover of the book, a short paragraph indicates that the author, Martin Berg’s wife left them at some point in the life of the family leaving her children in her husband’s care. So, Rakel, his daughter tries to piece the story together and tries to answer the question; Why did she do that in the first place? This was the first thing that came to my mind after reading this mentioned paragraph:

I wish my mom could have the courage and the energy to leave us. I would have rather seen her soar high up in the sky surrounded by her dreams and ambitions. Instead, I watched her slowly suffocating while playing a character she could never honestly relate to. And I mean it. I mean every word of it. 

This is how my reading journey starts From the Back to the Beginning.

The book starts with an epic still of the struggling author Martin Berg lying on his back on the living room floor his hands crossed over his stomach and he is surrounded by his ungrateful ‘children’; papers. Papers containing ideas, manuscripts, or half ideas, abandoned ones, rejected ones, never-truly-liked ones and coffee-stained ones. Probably one of the most cinematic and fun opening to a book that I have read in a while.

It was a sunny summer day with all the beautiful but sometimes annoying city noises that I miss so much from time to time when I’m reminded of its absence. Martin found himself in this position because he decided to re-organise the attic after facing the lonely thought that his children are leaving the nest -him- one by one. So now he is lying there contemplating the meaning of his life, his legacy (the papers) and stares above onto the eye-hurtlingly white ceiling thinking how it resembles a nice, clean, crisp, white sheet of paper. Ready to write on it.