Stockholm Series III: Remember the City

This book, third in the five-novel Stockholm Series by Per Anders Fogelström, continues the story of Henning Nilsson’s children as they go about their lives in Stockholm and watch their small hometown become a modern city.

This novel picks up in 1880 and continues through the turn of the century, with construction underway in all parts of the city. New streets and wide boulevards are mapped, and a ring of residential suburbs grow up outside the old tollgates. The last horse-drawn streetcars disappears; the first car showroom opens. Electricity begins its debut.

Fogelström’s novels set best-seller records in Sweden. The first four have been translated and published by Penfield Books, with the final volume due out in late 2014 or early 2015.

The research in all the books is prodigiously detailed. The author gives us meticulous descriptions of landscapes, weather, rooms, streets, factories, cafes, bars, and emerging landmarks. He knows and understands the historical events, issues, and politics. He tells of the clothes his characters wear, how they smell, what alcohol does to their bodies. Most of all, he understands his character’s values, ideals, and emotions, their strengths and their weaknesses.