Beckomberga

A haunting novel of a woman's lifelong witness to her father's illness, and Stockholm's mythic mental hospital. Jackie's father, Jim, lives at Beckomberga. She takes the bus to visit him, though sometimes he refuses to see her and so instead she gets to know his fellow inmates: Olof, a man who has been there since he was a teenager, some sixty-three years; Sabina, wildly unconventional and beloved by Jackie's father and their doctor; and others. Beckomberga is Stockholm's famous, infamous mental hospital. An enormous, once-elegant building, it sits beside the most beautiful park, slowly falling apart. The doctor sometimes takes the residents for a night out-champagne in the backseat of the car, parties in town; he says: One night beyond the confines of the hospital makes you human again. Over the years, Jackie's family also falls apart, as her mother, Lone, tries to escape the oppressive hold Jim's illness has on her, as Jim himself tries to escape in