Many People Die Like You

by Lina Wolff

From Europe with something like Love

An underemployed chef is pulled into the escalating violence of his neighbour’s makeshift porn channel. An elderly piano student is forced to flee her home village when word gets out that she’s fucked her thirty-something teacher. A hose pumping cava through the maquette of a giant penis becomes a murder weapon in the hands of a disaffected housewife.

In this collection from the winner of Sweden’s August Prize, Lina Wolff gleefully wrenches unpredictability from the suffocations of day-to-day life, shatters balances of power without warning, and strips her characters down to their strangest and most unstable selves. Wicked, discomfiting, delightful and wry, delivered with the deadly wit for which Wolff is known, Many People Die Like You presents the uneasy spectacle of people in solitude, and probes, with savage honesty, the choices we make when we believe no one is watching … or when we no longer care.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Sweden, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2009

About the author

Lina Wolff is a Swede who has lived and worked in Italy and Spain. During her years in Valencia and Madrid, she began to write her short story collection Many People Die Like You. Her novel, Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs, was awarded the prestigious Vi magazine literature prize, given to writers to watch out for, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Swedish Radio award for Best Novel of the Year. She now lives with her family in Sweden.

Reviews

[Mai H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Looking back, I'm fairly certain I requested this because it was translated from the Swedish, and I have a more than mild love for the Nordic area. Nordic noir, this is not. Fredrik Backman, this is definitely not.

Perhaps this is the audio format showing through, but it was hard to separate out the short stories, as they drifted one after another in close succession. Some make sense. Some don't. Most just bored me. There are better short story collections out there.

[mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Format: audiobook ~ Narrator: Montserrat Lombard
Content: 4 stars ~ Narration: 5 stars
Complete audiobook review

Many People Die Like You is a collection of short stories. My guess is they are different from the ones you usually read. They are sometimes quite weird but still entertaining. Although many stories are mundane, some are a bit surreal. They also contain a touch of dark humor and satire.

Weird situations appear constantly. A wife hires a detective to prove her husband's infidelity and complains about the report. She wanted just text, no photos. The wife's lover one day knocks on the door and wants a place to sleep because he has nowhere else to go. A woman cries in front of the web camera and tries to attract more followers.

Spain’s setting and quirkiness gave me Pedro Almodovar vibes. I love his movies, so I enjoyed these stories, too. And Lina Wolff is an author I will keep in my mind.

Thanks to Saga Egmont Audio for the ALC and this opportunity! This is a voluntary review and all opinions are my own.

[Ruben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lina Wolff writes delightful, quirky stories. They are always extremely engaging because they are about personal interaction, whereby the main character is usually an extremely open and honest young woman, who speaks and thinks without scruples, seemingly naïve, but actually very smart (the British narrator of the audiobook fitted these main characters very well).

The stories are all set in Spain, but they could be set in any European or American city: it is not about Spanish culture, but about regular daily-life situations, at work or at home, that suddenly take a turn for the bizarre – often something sexual – but whereby the main character keeps her head cool and confronts the situation unperturbed.

I still have to figure out what exactly Wolff’s bigger intention is with this unique approach and style (reminiscent somewhat of Sara Mesa, but slightly more absurd), but it certainly makes for wonderfully uncomfortable, refreshing and funny stories.

[Abbie | ab_reads · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

(#gifted @andotherpics) I’m really torn on how to rate this short story collection overall. I think one of the reasons I struggled is that there’s no overarching theme to the collection. Obviously not every short story collection I read and enjoy has a theme, but like Atwood’s are usually dark and cunning, Florida by Lauren Groff is tied together by, of course, the Florida setting, Dark Satellites which I read last month was dedicated to exploring outcasts of German society... I feel like I need something to grasp on to.
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But in a way this does allow Wolff to show off her versatility as an author. There are funny stories, shocking stories, dark stories, and honestly some stories I just plain didn’t get or didn’t like. She plays on unassuming, day-to-day scenarios, often twisting them into surprising outcomes.
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My top two favourites were actually the first and last stories, one where a scene between a housewife and the detective she’s hired to trail her husband she suspects of cheating on her ends in a truly ‘OH SHIT’ moment, and the other featuring a desperate man who’s forced into selling all of his organs. Wolff is Swedish but has lived in Spain, and the stories are often an interesting amalgam of Spanish and Swedish culture.
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Saskia Vogel’s translation from Swedish is pretty much flawless as far as I can tell; there’s no clunkiness and every story reads smoothly. When I’m trying out an author for the first time, I wouldn’t judge their whole body of work from a short story collection. I think fans of Lina Wolff will enjoy this new collection from her, while I’ll be giving one of her novels a go to see if I can click better with those, as I did really enjoy her writing style.

[Royce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of short stories is excellent. Although Lina Wolff weaves the characters in her stories down dark and strange paths, the reader empathizes with the stark humanity found in all of them. As a reader, you feel as though you are inside the character’s mind, plotting their next move. Creepy and delicious, with a side of the absurd with some wit and sarcasm thrown in to push the reader over the edge.

I also liked how the place or setting of the stories played a dominant role. Many of the stories took place in Barcelona or Madrid. Having lived and studied there many moons ago, I loved her descriptions of neighborhoods, museums, and the Spanish culture itself.

I really enjoyed reading these stories and look forward to reading more of her work.

[Theediscerning · Rating 2 out of 5]

Covers schmovers – you certainly can judge books by their titles, and those from this author are suitably peculiar to suggest some weird contents. And we do indeed start with an unusual evening for a woman and the detective she's employed to shine a light on her husband's shenanigans while working away from home. The second story, however, tells us that it's not done to be strange when in business – what we get is a fairly humdrum story of humdrum office life for a school-leaver in Valencia. Switching to Madrid, the title story has a literature professor on the downward pass through life. I didn't find it particularly satisfactory, lacking a certain plausibility. The next, shorter, work took a little too much pleasure in not going anywhere, too – could we not have the strange back by this point? It's lacking as well next, in a look at an age-gap-defying romance, but the traditional arc here I think is foregrounded, as no tricks were called for. The bitterness of old age alongside over-familiarity of your long-term partner comes next – and while I can say it comes with added gorillas, it's not exactly peculiar. I'm ignoring a piece I had no response to whatsoever when I say we next get a look at fumbling young love – with added Mickey Mouse, to tick the quirk box. A dangerous relationship comes next, in a story that has the length to feel a centrepiece of the whole book. I have to take it on advisement that it's realistic. A day in the life of a life model, complete with weird dreams and a weird admission about her childhood is yet one more visit to the same patch of Madrid, and you begin to wonder if this Scandinavian author had done much mileage in the research.

One of the reasons this book wasn't a complete success for me was its lack of theme – it just seemed one of those 'here's what I wrote this year, so that's one off my contract' books. It's only with two more looks at fractured friendships, in and out of relationships that we see there is an element of a thematic topic, of how life is about taking the rough with the smooth, especially when choosing who to shack up with. And that has to be quite a well-trodden philosophical path where short stories come in. Ultimately, this seemed too ignorable to me, with the works never really sticking in my mind. I'm not saying the oddball was needed through and through to make them more memorable, but they did need something to help them be. As it is they were unexpectedly vanilla. Two and a half stars.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite enjoyed this short story collection from the Swedish feminist writer Lina Wolff. The stories are mostly about women but some have male narrators. Most are a little, but not overly, strange and darkly humorous. Most take place in Spain, where Wolff lived for a time, but a few take place in Sweden. I particularly liked "Maurice Echegaray" and "Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion," although "No Man's Land" and "Misery Porn" are hard to forget as well. The translation is excellent.

The stories:

"No Man's Land" - a woman reacts to news of her husband's infidelity
"Maurice Echegaray" - a young woman graduates from high school and starts working for Maurice
"Many People Die Like You" - a middle-aged university professor has affairs with younger women
"Circe" - a girl in high school discovers herself
"Odette Klockare" - a young man falls in love with an elderly woman in small-town Sweden
"And by the Elevator Hung a Key" - two women befriend an elderly couple
"When She Talks About the Patriarchy" - a portrait of an unhappily married man
"Veronica" - a young man tries to propose
"Misery Porn" - an average guy hooks up with a psycho
"A Chronicle of Fidelity Unforetold" - a married woman works as a nude artists' model
"Nothing Has Changed" - two women live together while attending university in Sweden
"Imagine a Living Tree" - a man observes as his wife's young fling comes to live in their home
"Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion" - a Swedish woman tries to connect to other writers while living with her Spanish husband and infant in Madrid
"The Year of the Pig" - a woman discovers her talent for healing others in Madrid's Chinatown

[Signe · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5… Hm. Lika tankeväckande som förvirrande

[Liberty · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the slay-feminist novel I thought it would be! Definitely more read as being written by a man, which is always disappointing. I guess I bought it a bit tipsy in a charity shop so my expectations were skewed you could say

[selma · Rating 4 out of 5]

blev så glad när jag hittade denna på bibblan av min favoritförfattare som har skrivit alldeles för lite om jag får säga det själv!!
underbara noveller som hänger kvar i en men mer i form av abstrakta stämningar/bilder än i ett sådant existentiellt djup som wolffs andra böcker. men mer än så kanske man inte kan kräva av en novellsamling? formen leder kanske till att allt känns lite ytligare? oavsett kändes det fint att hänga bland kackerlackorna och de maktlösa karaktärerna i spanien (och skåne), det är sån bisarr och smått äcklig vibe vilket passar mig alldeles utmärkt

[Billie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wolff grounds these stories in the mundane lives of ordinary people, but takes them on weird dalliances through the amoral and corrupt. These excursions often lead us away from the heteronormative societal structures and into the complexities of the mind.

[Gemima · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first story was interesting but the rest were forgettable. It was written in a very patriarchal way in which it sounds like it was written by a man.

[Briar Lomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did like this freaky little collection but I was let down by the endings. There were a few missed tricks where things could have got weirder and smarter, but just plateaued instead.
In saying that - the prose is super vivid and poignant. You can feel the spanish heat all the way through.

[Rohan Crickmar · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first encounter with the formidably perverse literary talents of Lina Wolff. In this short story collection a number of erotically-charged encounters between philanderers, fraudsters, philosophers and various curious wandering spirits play out. Much like Nancy Lee's DEAD GIRLS, many of the Spanish-set stories appear to slyly reference common themes, events and characters. However, the strongest stories in the collection are among the handful set in Wolff's native Sweden.

The story of a thirtysomething piano teacher entering into a sexual relationship with an elderly piano student manages to be horrifying, heartbreaking and beguiling. While another in which a man becomes obsessed with a weeping woman he inadvertently tunes in to on his TV manages to go into all kinds of darkly masochistic terrain to do with voyeurism, control and content.

Some of these stories are like spying on a very small and secretive intimacy, while others seem to encapsulate an entire lifetime of yearning and fantasy. Wolff is also incredibly adept at melding together pop culture and high art in a way that prioritises neither and seems very much in touch with her particular characters and their peculiarities. For lovers of quirk-ridden intensity and perversion this is an essential read.

[Nova Hylla · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jag tycker inte om att läsa noveller egentligen, men den här boken fick mig att inte rusa igenom varje novell utan bara njuta av nuet i texten

[Callum McLaughlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

In principal, this collection of short stories held lots of promise, as I love the idea of wicked, wry twists on every day domestic life. But if there was a running theme throughout the stories, it was an interesting setup that just never seemed to go anywhere. I don’t mind a lack of narrative conclusion in a piece of short fiction if there is some obvious thematic or emotional resonance in its place, but sadly I just failed to connect with Wolff’s style in any meaningful way. As each story fizzled out rather limply, I was consistently left wondering what the author even intended to say.

If there was one standout that made the collection worthwhile, for me it would have to be Misery Porn. We follow a man who begins a relationship with his neighbour, who livestreams footage of herself crying as entertainment. He is soon drawn into his girlfriend’s work, but as things escalate, it becomes clear that she thrives on heartache in ways that make him deeply uncomfortable and which could endanger them both. Again, I think it would have benefitted from a stronger ending, but it offered an interesting reversal of the abuser/victim dynamic, commenting on toxic relationships and society’s obsession with suffering.

Other near highlights were a story about a man who discovers his wife has been cheating on him when her lover turns up on their doorstep asking for a place to stay, and a story about an elderly woman who embarks on a fling with her much younger piano teacher, much to the shock of their community. It was setups like these that proved Wolff has great ideas when it comes to plot and character dynamics; I just couldn’t gel with the execution in the vast majority of cases, unfortunately.

On a more positive note, however, some of the stories were written while the author lived in Spain, and I think she is able to invoke both Swedish and Spanish settings with the same ease. For those who love subtly discomfiting, slice-of-life stories that explore an idea more than a narrative or an emotion, this may work considerably better for you than it did for me.

Thank you to the publisher for a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Mrs C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love surreal stories that have compelling points. This one however is clever, but it didn’t quite make me race till the end of each story arc. Each story features banal aspects of life but every once in a while, something scandalous or edgy peeks through (sexual torture for example). Each story unravels slowly and almost aimlessly, but there are nuggets of truths enclosed within, the reader just needs to be patient.

Thank you to the publisher for the advance reading copy access.

[Rebecca Jardsdotter · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Det hade hur som helst varit något med henne under den sista tiden. Det var svårt att sätta fingret på, men saker hade varit annorlunda. Det började någon gång kring hennes födelsedag. Hon var trettionio år gammal nu, sa hon då, och en bättre människa. Jag undrade varför man blev en bättre människa när man fyllde trettionio. Då sa hon att hon grät oftare, och målade större båtar.”

Älskar Lina Wolffs språk och sätt att skriva, men novellsamlingen är inte hennes bästa verk.

[Cordelia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this collection of fourteen short stories written by Swedish writer, Lina Wolff. The stories were not easy reading, but well worth the effort. They were unusual, unpredictable and slightly discomforting. There were stories of all types - some funny, some dark, some shocking.

There is something rather nice about reading a short story when you don't know what to expect. Something of a surprise.

I would certainly recommend this book to others.

Thank you to Edelweiss, the publisher and the author for sending me this ARC.

[Abby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the writing in this book of short stories. I am not a big fan of the short story format, especially these ones where there aren't really endings or sometimes even much of a story to begin with. A few of the stories were interesting enough to keep me engaged but didn't come with a lot of payoff. Either way, I really liked reading these and would love to read this author's novels.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peculiar little book of stories by a Swedish writer who has lived in Italy and Spain, therefore giving the Nordic bleakness some Mediterranean flavour. It’s wicked and witty, saucy and sensual, feminist and funny.

[Ken Fredette · Rating 3 out of 5]

What Lina would do is that she would build up each case into a boiling point and close it down. You wouldn't know any out come. She kept most of her stories in Madrid.

[Louise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Short stories set in Spain. They fell a bit flat. A lot of them ended very abruptly.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these stories. There were really some excellent strange stories. My favourites were "Maurice echegarry" and "by the elevator hung a key"

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways reading this collection is an exercise in dissatisfaction, but I think that's an intentional reflection of the malaise, ennui, and anxiety felt by these stories' protagonists.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stories of small communities and intersections, as well as individual moments of connection.

[Kaloyana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love these short stories. Maybe just two were less good than the others. The style is immaculate. Expressing emotions of complicated people and situations is so true.

[natalya 🧸 · Rating 2 out of 5]

dnf

[mia maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

när hon pratar om patriarkatet. :((((
verónica. knasig och lite fånig. älskar kvinnan.
snuff. denna fastnade så mycket.
krönikan över en oplanerad trohet. en av de bästa novellerna. lite distanserad men samtidigt så närvarande.
allt är som vanligt. kräks på livet och känslan. på det bästa möjliga sätt
tänk dig ett levande träd. fint och okomplicerat men också avtrubbat.

uppdatering: fick 3,9 i betyg av bokklubben! språket var fantastiskt.

[Maja Svensson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jag kan inte beskriva vad som händer men jag är liksom där i allt psykologiskt, känsligt och vardagsäckligt. Och jag trivs.