The surprising sequel to Gentlemen, the instant classic that defined Klas ?stergren as a major voice in Scandinavian literature. Gangsters begins at exactly the same moment ?stergren left his fictional universe a quarter-century ago: the young narrator and the beautiful femme fatale Maud, ex-lover of Henry Morgan and the evil industrialist Wilhelm Sterner, sitting very close together on a bed in Henry Morgan's abandoned apartment. Very quickly, however, we learn that nothing from the earlier novel is what we believed it to ...
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The surprising sequel to Gentlemen, the instant classic that defined Klas ?stergren as a major voice in Scandinavian literature. Gangsters begins at exactly the same moment ?stergren left his fictional universe a quarter-century ago: the young narrator and the beautiful femme fatale Maud, ex-lover of Henry Morgan and the evil industrialist Wilhelm Sterner, sitting very close together on a bed in Henry Morgan's abandoned apartment. Very quickly, however, we learn that nothing from the earlier novel is what we believed it to be. The young narrator didn't tell the truth in Gentlemen. He was too scared. Sinister agents, including the evil industrialist Sterner and a gray and anonymous civil servant known only as the Envoy, forced him to leave out the true story?Maud's safety depended on it. Now, twenty-five years later, Maud is dead, the Envoy is retired, and the writer is free to tell what really happened. But if you have lived half your life in denial of the truth, can you suddenly just summon it at will? Gangsters is a beautiful and tragic love story, and a profound meditation on the nature of fiction, illusion, and storytelling?a meditation made by a mature master revisiting his youthful material.
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