TWO BOYS - ONE LIFE (TVÅ POJKAR)
Andreas Ekström
Andreas was twelve when his best friend Henrik was killed in a car accident, the events of that day in 1987 have haunted him ever since. In this essayistic memoir the author weaves together the strands of his own life following the tragedy, exploring the unreliability of memory and the bewildering nature of grief, but equally, the enduring power of friendship and ultimately, survival.
In Two Boys – One Life, Swedish writer and lecturer Andreas Ekström returns to the summer when a tragic road accident split his life in two: he was the boy who lived, while Henrik would remain twelve forever. In the two years after the accident, Andreas stopped growing, his body seemed to register a shock his mind could not yet process. Ever since then, he has carried a quiet conviction that he must live enough for both of them.
Now, gravely ill and waiting for a liver transplant that may never come, Andreas finds himself once again suspended between life and death. Somehow, Henrik’s fatal accident and Andreas’ looming transplant have become intrinsically entwined in Andreas’ mind. As he prepares for the possibility of his own death, Andreas is determined to follow every thread of the accident; he combs through testimonies, police reports, and medical records. He does not have every detail, but to die without understanding feels unthinkable.
This is a deeply personal and intensely moving narrative in which Andreas weaves together the strands of his own life containing not only his own chronic illness and the deeply held friendship with Henrik, who never to go experience life beyond his twelfth year, but also explores the unreliable nature of memory, and the bewildering sense of grief which has followed Andreas ever since his best friend’s death.
Moving between the hospital room and the deserted road where everything changed, Ekström ultimately weaves a bigger narrative around illness, grief, memory, friendship, and the burden of survival. With stylistic precision and dark, disarming humour he asks, is memory enough to keep someone alive?
When the reader comes to the end of the book, they realise it is not an essay on grief or loss; it’s an elegy to life, and to enduring friendship.
With the emotional immediacy of The Bright Hour by Nina Riggs and as unflinching as Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Two Boys – One Life will leave no reader unaffected.
139 pages
Rights
Sweden: Weyler