"The Readers Of The Broken Wheel Recommend" by Katarina Bivald (2015)

The best thing about Katarina Bivald’s “The Readers Of The Broken Wheel Recommend” (2015) is that it is a book about two book lovers who don’t even realize that they love the world and their community even more than they love the books themselves. Amy, a woman from rural Iowa, more specifically, a run-down impoverished town in middle America, and Sara, a sweet and shy girl from Sweden, actually never get to meet. Instead, they are pen pals, and when Sara finally reaches Broken Wheel, Iowa to meet her, Amy is dead. 

But back to the previous point: what is it about books that makes them so special? It doesn’t matter what you read. Isn’t the answer that books provide a view into a world different than our own? Where we learn about people or persons that reflect us and our inner yearnings or else teach us why and how each individual inhabits this life in completely new and unexpected ways? “Readers Of The Broken Wheel Recommend” shows us how books somehow always had to begin with people. 

So. Sara Lindqvist finds herself in this small town alone and stranger. In this place that can’t even make ends meet, it is a wonder to her that everything is offered up for free. Free meals at the diner run by the boisterous Grace, free drinks at the local bar run by a gay couple - Andy and Carl - trying to be as normal as possible in this conservative town, and a free home which happened to be the late Amy’s home. And there’s Caroline. And George and John… and Jen. Oh, and Tom. 

Slowly but surely and somehow miraculously, Sara inhabits Amy’s old home and this place called Broken Wheel and comes to find herself at peace with these strangers, each with their own muddy past and problems and heartaches, each with their own dreams and goals that more often than not do go farther than dreams and goals. Sara, a voracious and avid reader, has no trouble reading - not words on pages - but life and people too. Any intelligent person knows this about keen readers - readers never fail to examine their surroundings with care and love - even though it may come off as something else, such as disinterest or avoidance. The reader’s mind is always there, working in the most subtle of ways, and Katarina Bivald illuminates this exquisitely with Sara. 

Obviously, Katarina Bivald had much to say in her portrayal of rural Iowa. And so what if this book was translated from Swedish and is by a Swedish woman? It is refreshing to get this view of community from her, where everyone talks behind each other’s back and where everyone makes huge sinful mistakes and acts as if it’s not a big deal, drinks their sorrows away, and voices their opinion without giving a damn hoot about who hears it. The fact is, Bivald describes a place where gossip is not to bring others down, but instead, becomes a way, albeit roundabout and weird, of commenting on why each individual should be understood, despite all idiosyncracies. Gossip as a way of beginning a story, perhaps. A story that brings the whole place together. 

There’s history too. Bivald does not hesitate to comment on the early settlers and why places like this are as such. Bivald comments on Swedish stereotypes too, and where else but from their most famous contemporary book “The Girl With Dragon Tattoo”, a strange English translation of the Swedish title “Men Who Hate Women”:

“It was actually quite disheartening. Broken’s Wheel’s only image of Sweden was comprised of sadomasochistic conspiracies and organized crime, with a touch of Serbian mafia thrown in to confuse things."

Sara herself, an outsider, learns how to become a huge, meaningful part of a community that she was never supposed to be a part of in the first place. She sinks into the community, as she would into a good book, and comes up with ingenious ways of paying people back without just handing them money (which they would have refused). In the end, she opens up a bookshop in Amy’s honor within a town in which no one reads or desires to. All because she believed that the happiness she received from books could be passed on to others despite their initial inclinations. And in the end, she turns them around.

The bookshop becomes a place of comfort to many. Not because of the books or the run down comfy armchairs, or the new yellow paint. But because of Sara, and her desire to keep Amy’s kind spirit alive. 

The comedic parts of this endearing story are found in Broken Wheel’s Napoleon Complex. The next town door, Hope, has a little more money and a little more pretentiousness to go with it. Laugh along as you watch the community organize a grand scheme to make those stuffy nosed folks go red in the face; not without a lot of help from their brand new bookstore, selling, “Proos”, as they forced George to pretend to buy. Oops, Proust. 

This book should ideally be read in a couple days, with a candle on, while snuggled at home on the couch or in bed. If there’s light acoustic guitar playing and the sun flickering in and out of swaying curtains as the twilight sneaks soothingly over you, all the better. 

Sara never was loved the way she was supposed to be loved back in Sweden. But it is a joy to see her come alive in this poor, run-down town, taking in sights and sounds and emotions, tastes and everything else, as she falls in love with someone and even something bigger:

“It’s funny, she thought, how often we stick to the safe path in life, pulling on blinders and keeping our eyes to the ground, doing our best not to look at the fantastic view. With seeing the heights we had reached, the opportunities actually awaiting us out there; with realizing we should just jump and fly, at least for a moment… she had kept behind the safety barrier her entire life, but now she was standing there at the edge of the precipice for the very first time, fumbling blindly with the realization that there were other ways to live, at how intense and rich life could be.”