Book Review: I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

Despite graphic scenes and tragically well-rounded characters John Ajvide Lindqvist's I Am Behind You (titled Himmelstrand in the original Swedish) will remain for me a surrealist novel.  The obvious dream-like expanse in which the characters wake to find themselves notwithstanding Lindqvist's work dwells on the heavier themes that inspired various surrealist's darker dreams.  Cue Luis Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou for an exempli gratia.  And I do shy away from violence.  However, even as Lindqvist references films like Hostel - abhorrent torture porn - and presents some horrific scenes, these parts are not what linger in my memory, instead existing as necessary moves to get to the satisfying end.

Trite as it may sound the characters prove to be their own worst enemies, something Lindqvist is slow to reveal - the creatures/entities/things that prey on the people do so with the characters consent albeit via some mindfuckery.  At the end the morphing monsters along with the other zombie creatures whom they have a sanguine symbiotic relationship with prove to simply be part of a bizarre ecosystem, a - yes - surreal ecosystem.

John Ajvide Lindqvist (photo by Teemu Rajala)

The concept of "high strangeness" is one I've come to love: use The Mothman Prophecies as a primer, the book and not the movie.  In many ghost/supernatural/religious/ufo experiences there often exists an element of weirdness - a quirkiness to the sundry encounters that seem to be artifacts of a world radically foreign to ours overlaping at a 90 degree angle.  I Am Behind You captures this vibe, describing an arc that is complete yet which contains elements of the nonsensical, a dream-logic that the reader is not privy too.

As some reviewers have said, this book can stand alone but is part of a trilogy.  Some have said that the second novel, I Always Find You, would be helpful to read even before I Am Behind You.  I'm looking forward to reading the next one but almost want to wait a year or so just to let I Am Behind You continue to seep in.