New Swedish Books, Autumn 2018 1
New Swedish Books 66 My Window to Space Gherkin s
its in the window looking out across the yard. Snow falling. Out there the other children play, someone waves. But Gherkin remains in the window. Contemplating the universe’s endlessness, the ungraspable time span of evolution, approaching global warming. From inside the flat Dad coughs. Mum is writing her dissertation about outer space. She’s always stressed. Dad takes care of everything else. But one day the cough takes over. Dad has to go to the hospital. A dying star keeps on shining as long as its light travels across space. How does it work with dads? Gherkin’s perspective and personality is sketched in a language full of tenderness and care. With an almost poetic repetitiveness a life in crisis is painted. Neither Kroon’s precise writing nor Sundqvist’s finely-tuned images shy away from what's painful in life, but it is done with the utmost respect to those afflicted, be it the reader or the characters themselves.