The Hurricane Party

Description

Hanck Orn's son is dead. When they come to the door they tell him it was a heart attack, but he knows they are lying. So he travels to the outermost reaches of the land to find out what really happened. When he lands on the island he is met by a young woman, hair streaked with blood, raving like a lunatic. She is one of the sisters, who tell him the story of how his son died in the great hall of the Clan, the Norse gods, who were holding a party. But the festivities soon got out of hand, the guests began to argue with one another, and the mischievous shapeshifter Loki dealt a deadly blow. Set in a dystopian future that recalls Orwell and Zamyatin, Klas Ostergren has weaved a dizzying story of magnificent scope and foul play. Moving from the golden halls to the depths of the underworld, it is about one man's search for justice for his son in a world on the brink. A place where true love is so strong it can bring about the end of time.

KLAS OESTERGREN was born in Stockholm in 1955 and is the author of several novels, including Swedish cult classics Gentlemen (1981) and Gangsters (2005). A leading star of Sweden's literary scene for nearly three decades, he has won countless prizes, among them Piratenpriset and the Doblougska prize from the Swedish Academy. OEstergren is also an esteemed translator, playwright, and scriptwriter. His many memorable translations include works by J.D. Salinger, the collected works of Ibsen and numerous British playwrights, such as Nigel Williams, Ted Hughes and Harold Pinter. He now lives with his family in the seafront town of Kivik in southern Sweden.

* Praise for Gentlemen: An exuberant, complicated thriller and literary tour de force ... the unravelling of the mystery is extremely compelling and highly imaginative. -- Kate Saunders The Times * Praise for Gentlemen: An amusing, vivid depiction of a romantic era in post-war Sweden. Herald * Praise for Gentlemen: A modern Swedish classic. Financial Times * Klas Otergren's contribution to the Myths series has a terrific plotline ... courageous blend of sci fi, crime fiction and mythology, of genre sensibility and literary style. Sunday Business Post * When not translating luminaries like Salinger, Pinter and Ted Hughes into Swedish, Klas Ostegren is one of the country's most famous authors ... [The Hurricane Party is] an ambitious and fully fleshed-out entry in the Myths series. -- Alastair Mabbot Herald * The reader is very quickly spun into very strange realms in Klas Ostergren's wildly imaginative take on the Norse myths. Ostergren's high-octane weaving together of future dystopia with ancient mythology makes for an exhilarating adventure that races through times, places and ideas. -- Tina Jackson Metro * The novel details the slow, sensitive blossoming of a man from a loveless unit in a totalitarian state to someone whose account of his emotional travail might, it is suggested, change the heart of society ... an insightful and moving work. -- Eric Brown Guardian * A pleasurably idiosyncratic fable about surviving grief. -- Adrian Turpin Financial Times