APRIL I ANHÖRIGSVERIGE – APRIL IN QUIET DESPAIR
By Susanna Alakoski
LITERARY HISTORY IS crowded with drinking men. The addict is in the limelight. Women are portrayed as co-dependent alcoholic wives regardless of social class. But now the children of alcoholics and other relatives step forward on the literary scene and testify to a totally unglamorous existence. We have lived without trust, with denial, fear, boundlessness and insecurity. Chaos, violence. Loss, sorrow. Shame.
ALL OF US lived in quiet powerlessness. Some of us were forgiving, gave new chances. We supervised, supported, pleaded and begged. Some of us yo-yoed between soberness and relapses. Many of us thought that it was our fault, when injustices poisoned the water and trifles took the shape of hand grenades that were thrown through the apartments during intoxication. We found our mothers passed out on the floor. Our fathers jumped from bridges. We experienced our siblings’ hash psychosis. Most of us stopped inviting friends over. We waited for the good fairy. Some of us went speechless, others carried out sabotage. Someone thought suicide was the only way out.
HOW MANY ALCOHOLICS are there in the world? How many narcotics abusers? The number of relatives is unbearable. And yet, without minimising the suffering inherent in growing up with substance abuse, without diminishing the struggle for survival: among the disadvantages there’re also advantages. If we, the relatives – wives, husbands, parents, grandparents, siblings and children – get the possibility to heal an ocean of capacity opens up. How many can we be, out there in the working life?
APRIL IN QUIET DESPAIR begins where October in Swedish Deprivation ended.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Albert Bonnier, Sweden 2015
RIGHTS SOLD TO
Sweden, Albert Bonnier
REVIEWS
What Susanna Alakoski does feels invaluable – she gives the relatives of addicts their story, written in a way that is unique and magnificent.
– Dagens Nyheter
These letters of grief are written with a kind of furious and deeply sorrowful frenzy – Alakoski makes the collective storytelling her own.
– Svenska Dagbladet
The Swedish narrative of gender, class and addiction now becomes more complete – truer. And at the same time, a great love story.
– Arbetet
Every sentence is highly charged – with no safety margins.
– Norrbottens-Kuriren
An important and warm book that describes being a relative exactly as complex as it is – and in language that is poetically beautiful.
– Östgöta Correspondenten
A we that together search, remember, suffer, laugh, cry, give up and hope.
– Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar
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