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"Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress - probably had never even begun to see into himself. What was he, stripped of all the signs he flashed? People were standing up everywhere shouting, "This is me! This is me!" Every time you looked at them they stood up and told you who they were, and the truth of it was that they had no more idea of who or what they were than he had. They believed their flashing signs too. They ought to be standing up and shouting, "This isn't me! This isn't me!" They would if they had any decency. Then you might know how to proceed through the flashing bullshit of this world."

This excerpt pretty much sums up the book on surface for me. This is the story of Swede, an obedient son, a successful businessman, and a devoted family man. Things were all going great until his only daughter at the age of 15 plant a bomb in the town post office, killing two people. Illusion of a perfect family shattered and what followed was an intense search of a father about where did he go wrong in the raising his daughter.

I wouldn't have read this book had I not pledged to read ten award winners at the start of the year as one of my reading resolution for 2017. I was not expecting much after the disappointment of "The Road." While "The Road" had minimal dialogues, this was incessant rant of protagonist. It was frustrating when Swede tells about a person at different occasions but what makes it engrossing that he present a different picture of same person everytime. It tested my limits as a reader but boy how beautifully author has created this maze where I kept wandering, walking same path again and again yet feeling that I was exploring this path for the very first time. It just left me mesmerised.

This book is brilliant in expressing emotions if a doting father, passion of a husband, devotion of a son, rage of a man who blames himself for what his daughter became, pain of a man when he stripped layers after layers of lies in which he believed all his life, and helplessness of a husband when his wife went into shock... So so many emotions I felt through Swede.

This is a disturbing, haunting yet absolutely stunning and fantastic at the same time. An amazing read but just make sure that you are ready to give it the attention which this story demands and deserves.

I am definitely reading this after few years.