June 17th

‘Why is June 17th 1986 so important?’‘I don’t know. Something happened that day’Vidar is not himself. A mild-mannered teacher, he has been suspended for allegedly violently assaulting a student. He is aimless, agitated, distracted, so when he finds the number for his childhood summer home, he impulsively calls it. The phone is answered by his father – who has been dead for many years. Suddenly, a trapdoor to the past opens. By calling at different times, Vidar discovers that he can call back to one day only: June 17th, 1986. As he maps out his family’s every move the unhappy realities of his childhood rise to the surface, and he comes to believe that that day may have some bearing on the incident with his student in which he is now the subject of a criminal investigation. As Vidar crosses boundary after boundary, and the day from his childhood gradually unfolds, the noose tightens in the present. A devastating story by one of Sweden’s pre-eminent writers of how the harsh realities of the past inform the fragility of the present, June 17th is an addictively breath-taking journey through time, asking us: What shapes a human?