Swede Hollow: A Novel

“Swede Hollow” is the story of a group of Swedish settlers who crossed the Atlantic as steerage passengers in appalling conditions in the hope of a better life in America. This epic story follows their lives, from the 1890s to the 1950s. It is worth noting that in the first two decades of the Twentieth Century fourteen and a half million immigrants arrived in the United States, most of them from Europe. Fleeing poverty, prejudice, religious and political oppression, they arrived in America with little but their determination and their hope.The families’ first experience of the new world is grim. Processed like cattle in the Babel of cultures that was Ellis Island, a fire breaks out and they are taken by ferry to Manhattan. Dumped unceremoniously on the streets of New York, they struggle to survive. Here we see for the first time what will become a recurring theme in the book, the hostility and mutual suspicion of the rival ethnic groups. Germans will not hire Swedes, the Irish will not deal with Italians etc. Communities live in ghettos. The prejudice of the old world takes root in the new.Packed into crowded tenements, in squalid conditions, Gustav’s family is rescued by the Salvation Army who gives them the money for the train journey to Swede Hollow, in St Paul’s, Minnesota.The author threads history into fiction with a light hand. This is an engaging, evocative and often, very moving story. Early on, I cared about these people. Larsmo writes vividly of the harshness of winter and the strength and resilience required to forge a new life out of nothing.The story of the families parallels that of the nation. Their grit and struggle, their joys and sorrows are all played out in this primitive settlement. Strangers in an alien land, Larsmo’s description of “the vast prairie landscape, green and desolate, without beginning, without end,” is not merely poetic, but meaningful. He communicates a real sense of the immensity and richness of this half-tamed land and of the immigrants’ uneasy position in it.In some parts, the story sags - the pace of the narrative slowed down by historical accuracy, but it is a book that is well worth reading. Descriptions of the harsh working conditions, either in manual labour on the railroad or industrial drudgery in sweatshops and factories, are vivid and powerfully written. The new world is not easy. Families are forced to endure conditions often worse than those they left behind. Some make a brave new life for themselves and some are lost.Larsmo writes with a clear, unsentimental eye of the binding ties of clan and tribe- not always governed by love or even liking, but by the inescapable power of shared blood and a shared history. In describing the particular in one time and one place, he shows us a broader view. The story of a nation and the people who forged it with their lives. This book is a best seller in America and it is easy to see why.Charlotte GowerBreakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

I expected to enjoy this book much more than I actually did. I’m fascinated by stories of the early settlers in America, the brave families who emigrated from Europe and made new lives for themselves. However, this book just didn’t work for me, as I found it lacklustre with stereotypical characters and hackneyed scenarios. It pales in comparison with such pioneer classics as the work of Vilhelm Moberg, for example, and as the book progressed it just felt like such familiar territory. The tone is flat throughout, and I found it interesting that the author is a journalist as it has that documentary feel about it rather than being a fully developed narrative about fully developed characters. It tells the story of the Klar family who leave their homeland in 1897 for a new life in the mid-west, in a small town called Swede Hollow near St Paul, Minnesota. There we follow the family and their neighbours over the years right up to the present. We see the decades pass through the eyes of different protagonists, although their voices all tend to sound the same and are not clearly differentiated. Swede Hollow is a real place and the events described here are based on meticulously researched fact, and it’s an interesting and authentic account of the immigrant experience. Overall, however, I was disappointed and the novel failed to engage me.