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1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

"An absolutely fantastic debut novel."—Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove

A deeply atmospheric debut novel about three young people testing the boundaries of intimacy that is being hailed as "the love child of Normal People and Brideshead Revisited."

When Hugo takes a room in the house of one of Stockholm's wealthiest families, he unwittingly invites himself into the lives of people he will be unable to forget: Thora, a beautiful descendant of old money, and her childhood best friend August, who dreams of art. None of them have anything in common, but find themselves irresistibly drawn to each other.

Decades later, a young woman shows up on Hugo's door in New York one morning, hoping to stay with him. She introduces herself as the child of Thora and August, and comes carrying questions about her parents that send Hugo reeling back to his youth—to two euphoric summers in Stockholm, and people to whom he is now a stranger.

Timelessly familiar, tender and exultant, The Trio is a novel about the choices we could have made. About who we may have been, and the relationships that influence and linger on with us, long after they have come to an end.

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    • Kirkus

      August 1, 2023
      Three friends consider whether there's anything wrong with needing another person. As Hedman's debut opens, Frances, the daughter of Thora and August, calls Hugo, her mother's former friend, an expatriate Swede teaching in New York, and asks to meet. The novel then jumps back in time, finding Hugo, who's in college in Stockholm, living in the apartment of Thora's parents, members of the wealthy and morally dubious Stiller family. There, he meets Thora and August, inseparable friends since childhood. August is charming, his mood setting the tone of conversations, while Thora is often contrarian. Hugo is instantly enamored with both, admiring how they combine "ease" and "vulnerability." Thora and August's relationship is natural to them and an enigma to others: They are physically intimate but not exclusive. Thora defends their closeness by saying: "There's nothing wrong with needing other people." This philosophy is challenged when she develops feelings for Hugo, who has trouble distinguishing his emotions from the facade he projects for others. August, the lone member of the trio who doesn't narrate, is sincere yet opaque; we learn about him through his confessions to the others. Each is on the cusp of choosing a career, engaged in the surrealism of playacting adulthood. The language is often pleasantly surprising, as when Thora says, "I liked the way the real world crackled when filtered through the legal method," or conversation "moved forward by way of tender linguistic abuses." But as Hugo and Thora continue to falter on the question of who they are--with Hugo feeling that "everything was a pose" and Thora thinking "every single adjective could be used to describe her, and they'd all be equally true and untrue"--the tension behind their listlessness falters. Hedman's descriptions delight, but interest wanes as her characters perform the same poses again and again.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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