The Winter War - Hardcover

Teir, Philip

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781254885 ISBN 13: 9781781254882

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2015

Synopsis

On the surface, the Paul family are living the liberal, middle-class Scandinavian dream. Max Paul is a renowned sociologist and his wife Katriina has a well-paid job in the public sector. They live in an airy apartment in the centre of Helsinki. But look closer and the cracks start to show. As he approaches his sixtieth birthday, the certainties of Max's life begin to dissolve. He hasn't produced any work of note for decades. His wife no longer loves him. His grown-up daughters - one in London, one in Helsinki - have problems of their own. So when a former student turned journalist shows up and offers him a seductive lifeline, Max starts down a dangerous path from which he may never find a way back. Funny, sharp, and brilliantly truthful, Teir's debut has the feel of a big, contemporary, humane American novel, but with a distinctly Scandinavian edge.

About this title

About the Author

Philip Teir, a Finnish-Swede, is considered one of the most promising young writers in Scandinavia. His poetry and short stories have been included in anthologies, including Granta Finland. The Winter War is his first novel. He is married with two children and lives in Helsinki.

From Publishers Weekly

Finland-Swede Tier has been lauded for his poetry and short stories, so it comes as no surprise that his 2013 debut novel has been translated into English. The book—titled after the war fought between Finland and the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944 and was “the best of all wars so far, because both sides ended up the victors” —tells the story of how Max and Katriina Paul’s marriage dissolved. Populated with interesting incidental characters and laced with dark humor, this domestic drama is set in present-day Helsinki and spreads from there to rural Finland, London, and the Philippines, aptly limning the global nature of 21st-century life. This backdrop offers the author space to ruminate on everything from how feminism has changed since the 1970s to the nature of interpersonal relationships. The strength of this novel lies in the disparate voices that Tier elucidates so skillfully throughout the novel; from a fading academic’s anxieties about his stalled career to a young art student who becomes embroiled in the Occupy movement, Tier sympathetically and accurately depicts the anxieties that plague adults young and old in the postmodern Western world. Agent: George Lucas, Inkwell Management. (Mar.)\n

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 1781254885
• ISBN 13: 9781781254882
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 298