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Tre brothers swim in the lake. Their father has challenged them: they are going to round a buoy, which of the brothers is the fastest back to the beach? They go stubborn and enthusiastic on behalf of Dad. The buoy is further away than they think, all the boys get tired and panic, blue lips and loss of control. When they finally reach the shore, they too are overtaken by discovery: no one is standing there to greet them. The parents are gone.
This scene, one of the first in Alex Schulman’s “Survivors,” is shocking. It is not only the irresponsibility of leaving young children in deep water that is upsetting, but that goes beyond the real and dangerous situation; the estranged parent, the indifference to the agreement and the child’s longing for confirmation. It’s also kind of an original scene, dealing with how the three brothers become survivors in their own family.
When Alex Schulmans When the book about grandparents Karin and Sven Stolpe came out, “Burn all my letters” (2018), I wondered when my own family history could be thought to be out of print as literary material. Turns out, not yet. “The Survivors” is a fictional novel about three brothers and their upbringing, which undoubtedly coincides in many respects with the Schulmans brothers. Here are scenes that are recognizable from the debut novel about the father, “Hurry to love” (2009), and from the book about the mother, “Forget me” from 2016. The father on the deathbed, the mother on the bed of death. The children in the hospital rooms.
The same events are being portrayed again, it is an authorship that works with choirs. Events that have new layers, layer after layer, the same but with their turns always also different, such as PO Enquist worked with his repetitions; the father’s lost notebook, the green house, the layer of ice that covers his face. Pain points, Enquist said, and that applies a lot to Schulman as well.
