OCTOBER CHILD
From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this “factory” progressed, the writer’s memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This novel, based on the author’s experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman’s struggle against mental illness and isolation.
From 2013 to 2017, Linda Boström Knausgård was periodically interned in a psychiatric ward where she was subjected to electroconvulsive therapy. As the treatments at this “factory” progressed, the writer’s memories began to disappear. What good is a writer without her memory? This novel, based on the author’s experiences, is an eloquent and profound attempt to hold on to the past, to create a story, to make sense, and to keep alive ties to family, friends, and even oneself. Moments from childhood, youth, marriage, parenting, and divorce flicker across the pages of October Child. This is the story of one woman’s struggle against mental illness and isolation. It is a raw testimony of how writing can preserve and heal.
- World Editions
- Paperback
- June 2021
- 192 Pages
- 9781642860894
Buy the Book
$16.99
About Linda Boström Knausgård & Saskia Vogel (Translator)
Linda Boström Knausgård is a Swedish author and poet, as well as a producer of documentaries for national radio. Her first novel, The Helios Disaster, was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature in the United States. Welcome to America, her second novel, was nominated for the prestigious Swedish August Prize and the Svenska Dagbladet Literary Prize in her home country, and was also longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and the ALTA National Translation Awards in Prose. October Child became a bestseller in Sweden and throughout Scandinavia, where it was published to great critical acclaim.
Praise
“Boström Knausgård’s novel depicts a deeply cruel situation that is impossible to accept as the contemporary reality it is. Writing down the memories of her children, of her marriage, and of growing up, is a method of preservation, but it also becomes a way to share them with readers. With Vogel’s close translation into English, Boström Knausgård’s simultaneously delicate and strong voice is maintained in its new language, as the author shares insights into a locked away world that most of us know little, if anything, about.” – Asymptote Journal
“Swedish novelist Boström Knausgård brilliantly melds memoir and speculative nonfiction in her stirring account of the four years she spent in and out of a psychiatric ward….Part fever-dream, part quest to retrieve her memories, Boström Knausgård’s account expertly plumbs the treacherous crevasses of a creative mind.” – Publishers Weekly
“A deftly written, emotionally candid, insightfully informative, and inherently fascinating account.” – Midwest Book Review
“October Child hits the mark.” – Complete Review
“October Child is stunningly frank and urgently told. Linda Boström Knausgård writes with what appears to be a willingness to expose herself utterly. This makes for a painful and powerful book that asks complicated questions of its readers and acknowledges the impossibility of simple answers. An extraordinary work.” – Chris Power, author of Mothers: Stories
Discussion Questions
1. Are there any forms of agency available to our seemingly powerless narrator? If so, which ones?
2. In what ways are social classes discussed in the book? How does the narrator’s perception of her social class contribute to her own identity?
3. Are the characters in the narrator’s life supportive or dismissive of her adversity?
4. Who is Attila, encountered by the narrator towards the end of the book?
5. What is the narrator’s relationship to physical places – houses, streets, wards, countries?
6. How does the protagonist bring her dreams and the events of her past life to the surface of this narrative? What effect does this have?
7. What does October Child say about the types of responsibilities we have towards others and ourselves? What happens when we fail in these responsibilities?
8. In what ways can writing – and reading – be cathartic?
9. If you have read Linda Boström Knausgård’s other work, do you find any themes or characters that consistently reappear? Why do you believe they are important to her?
10. How does a real-life event transform when it becomes expressed in writing? Does writing things down fictionalize them, or preserve them, or both? What kind of transformation do you believe Linda Boström Knausgård sees in her writing?