Patter of feet
Original title: Ljudet av fötter
Author: Sara Lövestam
Original publisher: Piratförlaget, 2021
Genre: Fiction

Monika did not have an easy start in life. At the age of 10, she was placed in foster care and spent the following years trying to live up to her new parents’ ideals. She has a nice apartment, graduated with honors, got a PHD in mythology and now works as a professor at Stockholm University. She has effectively avoided the alcoholism that had plagued both her biological parents. She has done everything right, and still she cannot seem to get what everyone else has. Eleven years of trying for a baby has resulted in nothing. Through a perceptive sense of irony and humor, Monika finds companionship within herself – and the spark to try again.

In the process of undergoing her last attempt at IVF, Monika feels utterly lost and untethered. It seems that no one will come after her, and she hardly knows the generations who came before her. In an effort to grasp some semblance of stability and purpose, Monika turns to her heritage. Where does she come from, and if she has a child, what traits will it inherit? A family history previously unknown to her takes her to places she never imagined and awakens a self-awareness she never had before – her own mythology.

“[Lövestam] has an almost uncanny ability to make her fictional characters come alive from the first sentence ... Rarely have I read a book that manages to portray difficult experiences in such a light tone. And rarely have I laughed so much, because Sara Lövestam succeeds in using humor as a contrasting effect to give the gravity greater depth.” 

Svenska Dagbladet

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