When I Was a Child: An Autobiographical Novel

In 1897, in a poor soldier's cottage, in Trangadal, Smaland, Sweden, a baby by the name of Karl Artur Valter Strang was born. As Valter grows up, he tries to understand the world around him. He looks for love, honesty and equality, but instead finds a country riven with inequality, alcoholism and duplicity. As he ages, he finds what he can give his heart to, to helping his fellow man through Socialism and his own ability to write. This is a portrait of life in Sweden at the beginning of the 20th century, as the country industrializes, and as masses of people emigrate, looking for a land of promise.In many ways, this book is the flip side of Moberg's Emigrant series. Whereas Karl Oskar Nilsson left Sweden at the beginning of the great Swedish exodus, Valter Strang was young during its height. Herein is a Sweden where people have more relatives living across the Atlantic than in their own country. It also shows the life of those who could not, or would not, go. In many families, one child remains to take care of the aging parents, setting up an interesting dynamic. This book is quite fascinating for its look at this era.On the downside, this book (written in 1944, 5 years before The Emigrants) is not an upbeat, "feel-good" book. The young women that Valter encounters are less than virtuous and truehearted, and no happy ending lurks around the corner. But for all that, it is a powerful book, showing again the wonderful talent that Vilhelm Moberg possessed.If you want a happy book, then you might want to look elsewhere. But, if you are looking for a powerfully written, achingly emotional book, that is also a great work of history, then I highly recommend that you get this book!