cover image 12 Going on 13: An Autobiographical Novel

12 Going on 13: An Autobiographical Novel

Jan Myrdal. Ravenswood Books, $24.95 (192pp) ISBN 978-1-884468-01-8

In this third novel (after Childhood and Another World) based on his own upbringing, Swedish novelist, columnist and political analyst Myrdal once again portrays his Nobel laureate parents (his father for economics, his mother for peace)--sociologists Gunnar and Alva Myrdal--as cruel, smug hypocrites. Famed architects of Sweden's progressive social policies, Gunnar and Alva, by their son's acid account, used constant ridicule, authoritarian control, double-binds, sadistic humiliations and a rigidly behaviorist system of punishments to mold him and sabotage his sense of self. Originally published in Sweden in 1989, this searing self-portrait, winner of that country's Esselte Prize for Literature, is told from the point of view of a rebellious, wounded preadolescent. It opens in New York City in 1940, where 12-year-old Jan had been attending school, then moves to Sweden, where his parents leave him with his aunt and uncle while they travel. Hitler's invading armies are taking over Europe, and Jan, though embroiled in his own private domestic hell, castigates the hypocrisy of pious Swedes who ring churchbells on Sundays yet refuse to speak out against the Nazis or to take up arms. There are also flashbacks to the boy's visits with relatives in Minnesota, meshed with sexual fantasies and skeptical questioning of organized religion. Myrdal's fiercely honest account of how he resisted and overcame parental psychological abuse has the emotional intensity of a Strindberg play. (Dec.)