I'm really pleased that 4MA(link is external) picked this book as a discussion book as I've had it sitting here for ages and this gave me an excellent excuse to bump it into the Currently Reading stakes. It's one of those wonderful, thoughtful, introverted, considered, locked room style of Scandinavian books that are just my all time favourites.
From the Blurb:
Can you ever come to terms with a missing child. Julia Davidsson has not. Her five-year-old son disappeared twenty years previously on the Swedish island of Öland. No trace of him has ever been found.
Opening Lines:
Öland, September 1972. The wall was built of big, rounded stones covered in greyish-white lichen, and it was the same height as the boy. He could only see over it if he stood on tiptoe in his sandals. Everything was dim and misty on the other side. The boy could have been standing at the end of the world, but he knew it was just the opposite - the world began on the other side of the wall. The big wide world, the world outside his grandparents' garden. The thought of exploring that world had tempted the boy all summer long.