Even If Everything Ends

The climate crisis has escalated beyond our worst nightmares. Raging wildfires sweep through the Swedish countryside, turning vacationers into climate refugees. And yet, against this hellscape, life goes on. Marriages collapse; teenagers fall in love; parents succumb to midlife crises; children rebel. As society starts to lose its footing, the fates of four very different characters intertwine. Didrik, a father of three and media consultant, finds that his misguided efforts to be the hero that saves his family only make things worse. Melissa, a climate change denying influencer, is determined to live for the moment, despite it all. André, the bitter teenage son of an international sports star, uses the erupting violence to orchestrate his own personal revenge. And Vilja, a once self-absorbed teenage girl steps up in the face of all this adult ineptitude, to organise and resist. Brilliantly written, profoundly moving, devastatingly funny, this novel asks us to face up to one question: how will you decide to live, even if everything ends? TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY ALICE MENZIES

About the Author :
JENS LILJESTRAND (1974) is a critically acclaimed journalist and writer. He has been a critic for the newspapers Sydsvenskan and Dagens Nyheter and was a long-serving editor of the culture section of Expressen.

Review :
Jens Liljestrand's new book appears at the intersection of filmmaker Ruben Östlund and Norwegian writer Maja Lunde. It is about the climate, but also masculinity gone wrong. The well-off father of three who tries to suck the most pleasure out of the yellowing lawns at the vacation home in Dalarna is a close relative of Östlund's whimpy middle class husband from the film Force Majeure Even if Everything Ends is written with devastating skill: simultaneously nerve-wracking, astute and consumedly entertaining Even if Everything Ends is not a classic dystopia, more like a typical realistic novel that happens to take place in a dystopian time: our own. It doesn't seem very far-fetched to assume that Liljestrand, in a Jonathan Franzen-manner, wanted to write the big Swedish novel about climate collapse Liljestrand skillfully describes a form of pathetic and grandiose masculinity, all sprained pride and self pity (reminiscent of the male depiction in Ruben Östlunds' Force Majeure)... Liljestrand writes with an admirable prose which flows, and in its best moments it's both poetic and psychologically sharp. The book's true merit, however, lies in how it evokes the experience of crisis, the normalcy that has been disturbed' A page turner. You're hunted through scorching heat, through soot flakes, through the pathetic remains of the castle in the sky that was once the society in which we lived. Take out, lattes, motor boats, stupidity... Jens Liljestrand strikes where it hurts the most, in the middle of the repressed fear that everything will soon be over Intriguing, well-written and thought provoking A page turner. . . The story surprises the reader with a multitude of twists and turns, but it is so well constructed that it captivates until the very last page Outstanding Unsettling As thrilling as Jens Liljestrand's account of the impending catastrophe is, his masterstroke lies, above all, in the choice of his antiheroes. Their selfish revelations function as a magnifying glass for the issues we will face in a very near future... They are a reminder of the empathy that is so urgently needed to face climate change together The book's fast-paced plot creeps under your skin... This book drew me in and didn't let go until the very last page Stephen King with a shot of Scandinavian realism Feverish. . . By the end of the novel everyone - including the reader - will have travelled through the great gap dividing our theoretical knowledge of a subject from our ability to feel it in the flesh In his own way, romantic and irreconcilable, the Swedish writer appeals to our common sense as much as to our lost innocence, to save what can still be saved Jens Liljestrand's admirable skill of narration lasts until the very last phrase What an achievement! Breathtaking