Description

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE AUGUST PRIZE 2023

‘Bloody awful? Bloody brilliant, more like’ Daily Telegraph

I’m fizzing. I love not being his son.
Yes. I can feel it in my whole body. A great thrill – as if an adventure has begun. As if I’m the boy in a book about a boy who finds out his dad is the king of a magical and distant land.

Christmas, 1983. In the aftermath of yet another furious argument, seven-year-old Andrev’s mother lets him in on a secret: his father is, in fact, not his father. And so begins a new kind of childhood, in which fathers come and go, arriving in red Volvos and sweeping his mother off her feet. Fathers can be magicians or murderers, artists or thieves, and, like growing pains, or the weather, they appear uninvited and leave without warning. Fathers are drawn to his mother like moths to a flame – but even she can’t control how they behave.

Vivid and joyful, raw and tender, Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a novel about growing up in the chaos of social change; about how love begins and ends; and above all, about men. Because after all, you learn an awful lot about this strange species when you have seven fathers in seven years.

‘Pure joyous storytelling on every page … A little treasure of a book’ Fredrick Backman

‘A delight from start to finish’ Jennie Godfrey

‘Flawless … So sharp, so beguiling, so acutely observed’ Guardian

Publisher Review

A LITTLE TREASURE OF A BOOK. Hilarious but vulnerable, clever but raw, and pure joyous storytelling on every page. You’ll come for the laughs, but you’ll stay for the love letter, from a grown man to his boy self, promising everything will be all right * Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove * ‘I challenge you not to fall in love with Andrev as he thrashes doggedly through life – perpetually hopeful and inept. This is a small gem of a novel, with an irresistible voice and a teasing sidelong wit * Meg Rosoff, author of How I Live Now * This is a truly special novel. A delight from start to finish. Captures the joy and pain of being a teenager perfectly. I adored Andrev and already miss him * Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things * What a book! I laughed, cried, despaired and hoped for this young boy negotiating seven fathers in seven chaotic years, taking us with him for the wild ride. A story that reads this easily with consummate fluidity, pace and comic timing deserves the widest audience possible * Jo Browning Wroe, author of A Terrible Kindness * Darkly funny, and comically tragic. An absolute gem. I loved it * Claire Fuller, author of Unsettled Ground * In a perfect balance between levity and sadness, Andrev Walden depicts a boy’s attempt to come to terms with a life where fathers are constantly replaced. Bloody Awful in Different Ways is a humorous examination of a different kind of childhood, which, despite the pervasive blackness, is portrayed with an inexhaustible warmth and presence * August Prize Judges * Outstanding literature. Shamelessly entertaining * Sydsvenskan * An incredible account of growing up * Ann-Helen Laestadius, author of Stolen * Through Walden’s precise and evocative language, we are invited into a young boy’s observations of the world and his journey into manhood. A sharply critical view of the male-dominated world is interwoven with tender portrayals of how a person is shaped by their relationships. It becomes unmistakably clear how vulnerable and strong we are in relation to one another. I laugh, I ache, and I reflect as I read Walden’s book * Lisa Ridzen, author of When the Cranes Fly South * Walden makes both trivialities and atrocities sparkle * Aftonbladet *