Huset vid Pärlälvens slut
(The House at the end of the Pärl River)
by William Älgebrink
reviewed by James Walker
Dylan lives in a house in the woods by the Pärl River, outside of Jokkmokk in the far north of Sweden, in a house that has been in his family for generations. Dylan drives the local school bus and one of the schoolchildren calls him by the nickname bussis (busman).
He is an oddball and has various obsessions, one of which is that he feels that his heart is actually shrinking and in need of blood. This means he has to find blood to drink to keep it topped up.
The other obsession is his big sister Ella-Kajsa, who acted as his protector but has now left the family home to study in Uppsala and abandoned him to his fate. He longs for her to come back. Dylan shares the family home with his mother, father and older brother Vincent. Vincent and his mother are in cahoots against Dylan and his beloved sister, and when Dylan’s mother insists that his sister should give up any ambitions to study and that she must stay in the family home as women of the family have done for generations, things take a nasty turn.
The plot constantly switches between the present, with Dylan as an adult, and the past, with Dylan as he is growing up. The adult Dylan’s obsession with and need for blood is getting worse and his fridge full of hares’ hearts will no longer suffice, so he needs to look elsewhere and find a more adequate supply.
Scroll forward to pojken (the boy, the school pupil who travelled with Dylan’s bus) wakening up in bussis’ kitchen unaware of how he got there and how, having been shopping with his mother and falling asleep in the car, he is now in this strange house.
The boy has ended up in a very dangerous place and he has to struggle to stay alive, and as the plot unfolds, so does Dylan.
The House at the End of the Pärl River is the young (born 1997) William Älgebrink’s first published novel. It is difficult to categorise this novel, although having viewed other reviews available elsewhere in Swedish, it is seemingly a ‘horror’ novel. There is certainly a lot of blood and gore here, but the narrative of this short book (196 pages), seems too far-fetched even for a horror story.
In contrast to the parcity and incredulity of the narrative, the language and descriptions of Norrland and its nature and the setting of the novel are exquisite and Älgebrink is indeed a fine wordsmith. For example:
As that memory of when she was last in the hut is the only memory she has of her great grandmother. She cannot have been more than four years old. That memory is well-thumbed and worn along the edges, but nevertheless permanent, just as the memories from that age are.
This is a first novel and perhaps this wordsmith will be able to better develop the storyline and characterisations in a more credible way in subsequent books.
Huset vid Pärälvens slut
Romanus & Selling, 196 pages
Rights : Magdalena Höglund, Highland PR
William Älgebrink is a communications officer and filmmaker. Huset vid Pärlälvens slut is his debut novel.