Drowned: Book summary and reviews of Drowned by Therese Bohman

Drowned Summary

Drowned, set in the idyllic countryside during a short-lived Swedish summer, gets under one's skin from the first page, creating an atmosphere of foreboding in which even the perfume of freshly picked vegetables roasting in the kitchen becomes ominous.

On the surface, the story couldn't be simpler. A single young woman visits her older sister, who is married to a writer as charismatic as he is violent. As the young woman falls under her brother-in-law's spell, the plot unfolds in a series of precisely rendered turns. Meanwhile the reader, anticipating the worst, hopes against hope that disaster can be averted.

More than a mere thriller, this debut novel delves deep into the feminine soul and at the same time exposes the continuing oppression of women in Sweden's supposedly enlightened society. Mixing hothouse sensuality with ice-cold fear on every page, Drowned heralds the emergence of a major new talent on the international scene.

Paperback original

Drowned Reviews

"The seasonal and structural changes are deliberately understated and carry emotional weight into the climax, which Bohman deftly makes both foregone and suspenseful, leaving the reader wondering if everyone was doomed from the start." - Publishers Weekly

"A horrifyingly compelling psychological thriller set in modern-day Sweden... Bohman manages to flesh out characters, setting, and plot in just over 200 pages, a feat that makes for a highly engaging and fast-paced read, yet one with great depth." – Booklist

"Starred Review. A slim novel with a taut narrative line and a sense of impending disaster." - Kirkus Reviews

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Drowned Reader Reviews

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Rated of 5 by Diane S.
Drowned
This was a very different and hard to process psychological novel. I actually read part of it and put it aside for a few days just to think about what I was reading. The writing is lush,the prose wonderful the descriptions are very visual and sensory, at times beautiful. So on one hand is this beautiful background and on the other little random clues that point to madness and violence in a relationship. Yet these are easy to dismiss and the woman in this story does so, almost as it probably is in real like when one is trying to justify staying in an abusive relationship. It is not until there is a death that this woman begins to questions the things she has experienced and witnessed, begins to re-evaluate what she thinks she wants. This novel has almost a dreamlike quality to it and I really can not decide if it was brilliant or just pedantic, in the end I decided that regardless the prose is superb and I wanted to see where it ended. .

Therese Bohman is an editor of the magazine Axess and a columnist for Expressen and Tidningen Vi, writing about literature, art, culture, and fashion. She lives in Sweden.

Marlaine Delargy has translated novels by Åsa Larsson and Johan Theorin, as well as The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist (Other Press), and serves on the editorial board of the Swedish Book Review. She lives in England.