Mycket bra skriven bok om en intressant del av Sveriges historia som jag insett att man vet ganska lite om. ( )

Swede Hollow tells the story of a Swedish immigrant family, Gustaf and Anna Klar, their three children, and successive generations. It begins in Liverpool where the family traveled from Göteborg before boarding a White Star Line ship to New York and by rail to Minnesota, When my uncle and grandparents immigrated, they also went from Göteborg to Liverpool and boarded a White Star Line ship though they went to Quebec City instead. My grandparents took the Canadian Pacific to Minnesota while the Klars took the Great Northern. Still, the similarities were striking at the beginning. My grandfather and Gustaf Klar were both shoemakers, too. From there they diverged, my grandparents choosing to homestead while the Klars were city folk, trying their luck in New York City before settling in Swede Hollow in St. Paul.

This is the story of their struggle and the struggles of their neighbors to carve out a life in the city. There story reflects the true history of the immigrant community. While the Klars and their neighbors are inventions, the happenings are based on historical events. This is emphasized by some story elements presented as news articles. Their lives are hardscrabble marked by ambition, hard work, labor strife, and poverty. I loved the book and hated it to end.

Swede Hollow is an excellent book and you don’t have to be the granddaughter of Swedish immigrants to enjoy it. The characters are well-developed and complex. Even when wrong-headed, the reader can understand why they do what they do. It is a timely reminder that xenophobia is a constant and that immigrants often are people with deep, abiding ambition.

There is a fairly large group of characters, fellow travelers on the White Star Line, neighbors, and employers. There are ethnic rivalries and biases. Hamm’s Beer, for example, would only employ Germans. The narrative shifts from one to another. One of the more interesting characters is Inga, a woman who immigrated on her own mind and influenced the others. These immigrants struggled to wrest a life for themselves and build a future. I am grateful for them and the people who inspired them. I am also grateful someone had taken on the task of telling their story.

I received an e-galley of Swede Hollow from the publisher via NetGalley.

Swede Hollow at University of Minnesota Press
Ola Larsmo author site (Swedish) & at Swedish Book Review (English)

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/10/17/swede-hollow-by-ola-larsm... ( )

Swede Hollow by by Ola Larsmo

Mixed feelings on this one. I ended up reading the entire book because I wanted to find out what happened but can’t say that it was an uplifting or happy book in any way. I know immigrants had it rough and this book spelled that out well but there is usually some happiness somewhere along the way for at least some in a family saga.

This book spans the period from 1897 to 2007 and includes the voyage to America, landing in New York then living there awhile before moving to Swede Hollow. The Klars have it tough and really don’t get much of a break in life. One of their daughters does better herself and removes herself somewhat from the others. As with many families there are family tragedies and issues to contend with. I have to say that the 2007 bit lost me...I had not a clue who the person in that section actually was and wonder if it was just an add-on to make the story conclude on a more positive note. Another part that seemed odd was the inclusion of newspaper articles from various time periods that were put in just to explain what was happening in history but did not always refer to any of the characters in the story.

I felt this was a dark book with death, prison, murder, abandoned families, riots, lynchings...and the list goes on. The writing was clear but rather more of a narration than being in the story giving it an old fashioned feel.

If you enjoy historical family sagas then t his book is one you will probably enjoy.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes and No
Would I read another book by this author? Probably not

Thank you to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars ( )

Swede Hollow is a real place in St Paul, Minnesota. For decades in the late 19th to mid-twentieth century, it was also a poor neighborhood housing waves of immigrants--first Swedes, then Irish, Italian, Polish, and Mexican. Now the area is a park.

For this novel Larsmo meticulously researched life in the Hollow and for Minnesota's Swedish immigrants in particular. The details--the creek as open sewer, railroad tunnels, churches, Hamm mansion, workplaces, railroad, union activities, and so on--are all accurate. Only the main characters are fictional--a few of the minor characters were real people. Also included are a few newspaper articles that are from the St Paul paper.

For his story, Larsmo focuses on a family of 5. We see their journey, their struggle in New York, and then their settling into the Hollow with people who had been on the same ship. We see the children grow, the neighbors, the jobs, and how life moves on. Nothing shocking here, it's all very believable and very set in fact. I have read a lot of immigration novels over the last 30 years, and this one stands out in its historically accurate setting--and given that it is from the University of Minnesota Press, this is not all that surprising. I see this book being assigned in history classes and selling well throughout Minnesota and the greater midwest. It would also make a good middle grade/high school read, with a shotgun wedding but no graphic anything, no cursing, some drunks but definitely no glorification.

In a change from most immigration fiction, this was actually written in Swedish, with a 2016 publication date--100 years after the novel takes place. Larsmo is an award-winning Swedish journalist/academic who spent some time in Minnesota and that was when much of his research was done. It was written in Swedish and translated by Tiina Nunnally, who also did the fabulous recent translation of Kristin Lavransdatter. ( )