Bloody Awful in Different Ways

WINNER OF THE AUGUST PRIZE 2023

I''m fizzing. It seems as if... 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 canoe enthusiasts, 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

''Outstanding literature. Shamelessly entertaining'' Sydsvenskan<>

Product details

• Authors: Andrev Walden
• Assisted by: Ian Giles (Translation)
• Publisher: Fig Tree
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 14.08.2025
• EAN: 9780241720288
• ISBN: 978-0-241-72028-8
• No. of pages: 341
• Dimensions: 137 mm x 217 mm x 29 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; FICTION / Coming of Age, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), FICTION / Family Life / General, FICTION / Biographical, FICTION / Literary, Fiction in translation, Sweden, Family life fiction, Narrative theme: Social issues, Narrative theme: Love and relationships, Gender studies: men and boys, FICTION / World Literature / Sweden, Modern and contemporary fiction: general and literary, Biographical fiction / autobiographical fiction