The Facades

Starred review from July 29, 2013
In this fascinating, complex debut novel, a famous mezzo-soprano vanishes from rehearsal, leaving behind her husband, Sven, to care for their disaffected son and search for her in the labyrinthine streets of fictional Midwestern city Trude. Though most of the plot involves Sven’s existential and often humorous detective work, Trude itself is the biggest of Lundgren’s many successes here. The once-great city is well rendered not only in its physical appearance (“The city assembled itself, scattered lights in the old skyscrapers meandering the night sky like notes on a staff”), but also in its oddities, such as the militarized library where the librarians are in a stalemate with police, a pretentious nursing home that is more difficult to gain admission to than the local college, and bathroom graffiti that reads, “There is no use in killing oneself; one always does it too late.” Ratcheted onto the spine of an un-put-downable mystery and brimming with entertaining dialogue and unique, well-wrought characters, this is one of those rare books that corners every mood, every emotion, and throws them into the spotlight. Lundgren’s debut is a fierce, funny examination of loss, set against one of the most creative worlds in recent memory, and it’s not to be missed. Agent: Renee Zuckerbrot, Renee Zuckerbrot Literary Agency.

August 1, 2013
When a mezzo-soprano star of the local opera disappears, her worrywart husband must explore the depths of a bizarre and labyrinthine city for clues to her whereabouts. Some debut manuscripts are better left in desk drawers. That's not to say that librarian-by-day Lundgren's debut is without certain merits. The writer clearly has some syntactical skill, and his experiment in worldbuilding is ambitious. However, a seriously disagreeable narrator and a gloss of highbrow humor take the shine off this slice of literary absurdity quickly. Our narrator is Sven Norberg, a schlubby, smoking cubicle jockey who lives in the fictional city of Trude. Trude is a really weird amalgam of Midwestern highways and shopping malls punctuated with bizarre European-influenced behemoths designed by a mysterious architect named Bernhard. It's a city that has barricaded its libraries, creating a secretive underground of armed librarians, and it's, conversely, one that is obsessed with opera and other forms of high culture. Its superstar was Norberg's wife, Molly, who disappeared with no warning, leaving Sven to raise their teenage son, Kyle. Things happen--Sven starts sleeping with a very young girl named Plea; Kyle falls under the influence of a cultlike church; and clues to Molly's whereabouts start appearing in coded entries in the local newspaper. Later, a woman named Cassandra indicates to Sven that she may have clues to Molly's frame of mind. But none of it ever goes anywhere. It's as if the author is introducing odd situations and absurd events simply to shout at readers how terribly witty it all is. When asked for guidance from his son, Sven answers bluntly. "As I see it, the point is to endure as much shit as you can without any illusions," he says. Add on to all of this an ambiguous, confusing denouement, and the final product is a pretentious, frustrating mess. A hollow satire working so very hard at being clever that it forgets to deliver any emotional truth.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

September 1, 2013
Lundgren's first novel is set in the fictional midwestern city of Trude. Once a thriving hub of industry, Trude is now a place where libraries are barricaded and the mall is the main attraction. Molly, the well-loved mezzo-soprano at the Trude opera and wife of the narrator, Sven Norberg, has disappeared without a trace. Norberg becomes suspicious that people around him have conspired to spirit his wife away. He searches the city streets for her, while their 16-year-old son, Kyle, joins a fundamentalist church. The novel becomes increasingly surreal as Norberg's search grows more fervent, until, finally, Kyle shares an unexpected revelation about Molly which changes everything that came before. Lundgren incorporates thoughtful details, unexpected word choices, and striking turns of phrase that linger with the reader long after the book has ended. He has a keen sense of the mental abstraction that accompanies loss and translates it to the page with devastating accuracy. Readers with discerning taste in fiction, especially fans of literary fiction laced with mystery, will love Lundgren's debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)