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    Friday, May 10, 2024

    'Everything I Don't Remember' is a brisk, invigorating read

    One of the great side effects of the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" becoming a huge bestseller in the U.S. is that other Swedish authors nab more attention here. Jonas Hassen Khemiri's latest novel has just been released in America, and "Everything I Don't Remember" is an intriguing peek into life in Sweden, particularly the subculture of struggling immigrants and refugees, and it's a brisk, invigorating read. "Everything" centers on a young man named Samuel who dies in a car crash, and the question is: was it an accident or suicide? The novel jumps between characters' remembrances in extremely short snippets. The prime narrators are Samuel's former girlfriend, who translates between Swedish and other languages, particularly Arabic (Samuel works with the Migration Board), and his male pal, a former enforcer with a latent crush on Samuel.

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