VERKLIGHETEN – REALITY
By John Ajvide Lindqvist
It all starts with a dying fly, lying on its back and fumbling with its legs, on a windowsill.
A second later it is inexplicably gone. The lost fly is the first sign that something is wrong – that glitches and cuts have begun to appear in the fabric of reality.
Heidi Hallberg is the star of “At home with Hallberg’s”, the popular reality show following Heidi’s everyday life, as well as her husband, two children and stepdaughter. Constantly followed by a camera, she witness the strange disappearance of the fly, not knowing it will lead up to her questioning her own life’s realism. Soon things escalate and the same day Heidi’s hand mysteriously goes straight through a solid door and the stairs change height. She’s forced to confront what is true or false, and even start questioning if her children and husband are for real. Ultimately Heidi is forced to accept that her “reality” potentially could be simulated.
This is the horror version of all the reality shows we follow on a daily basis. A pitch-black, yet humorous, story that deals with the present version of realism and questions what it actually does with a person, and a family, to constantly act rather than live.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Ordfront Förlag
RIGHTS SOLD TO
Brazil, Editora Alaude
Poland, MAG
Sweden, Ordfront
REVIEWS
“Ajvide Lindqvist does not stop at dismantling shallow and overpaid role models and their neurotic productions companies – although he does it very well, at times hilarious but mostly with an anguished precision – he is after all a brilliant horror-author. In this unusually short novel (157 pages) he manages to twist our understanding of reality time and time again.”
– Dagens Nyheter
“[…] And perhaps that is what horror is all about. Something that puts everything on the line and makes us doubt. Something that tilts our perception. Ajvide Lindqvist approaches his characters with a level of sympathy that I rarely see in other authors. He haunts them, “subjects them” as Heidi Hallberg’s producer would put it. But he loves them.
I find myself entertained, bothered and a little more unsure of my own existence. “
– Kult magasin
“John Ajvide Lindqvist hits us with something very out of character: a thin novel […] and it makes me fall in love with him all over again. He is so good at creating worlds that are almost familiar, in this case the pop culture phenomenon that has given us Keeping up with the Kardashians, and he puts a spin on it that the characters can’t control. It is pure genius.”
– Sydsvenskan
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