June 17th: A Novel

"Alex is one of the truly great Scandinavian storytellers. He writes with compassion and curiosity about childhood, and the vulnerability of being small, in a way like no other I know. This is a novel that stays with you, you'll put it down and call your parents, or text your kids. And you'll wish that you could call yourself at some point in your life just to say: ‘You'll be okay.’” —Fredrik Backman

A novel of magic, mystery, family, and second chances in the vein of Matt Haig and Frederik Backman, in which a lonely Stockholm schoolteacher discovers the ability to make phone calls to the past—to his childhood summer home on June 17th, 1986—the day that marks the central mystery of his childhood.

“Why is June 17, 1986, so important?”

“I don’t know. Something happened that day.”

Vidar is not himself. After an incident at the school where he teaches, he’s been suspended from the classroom. Bereft and restless, he stumbles across the long-forgotten phone number to his family’s old summer cottage. On a whim he dials it, and to his astonishment his father answers—despite being dead for many years.

With a simple phone call to an old number, a trapdoor to the past—to one singular day, June 17, 1986—mysteriously opens. With each call—he’s only allowed one per day, he discovers—Vidar begins to map out his family’s every move on that June 17th which changed his life, though he cannot remember why. As the day slowly gives up its secrets, he becomes increasingly obsessed with every revelation, while the noose in the present tightens.

In this breathtaking novel about a journey through time, Alex Schulman explores what forces can shape—and which perhaps can heal—a human being.