stockholm

Short synopsis

Avishai Sar-Shalom, a world-renowned economist and leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Economics, is found dead in bed one evening, after an apparent heart attack. His body is found by four close friends who have known him for the past fifty years. But just before they call an ambulance and begin working out the funeral arrangements, one of them has an idea: What if his friends keep him “alive”, what if they conceal his death for the next eight days, thereby giving him the opportunity to achieve the one thing he wanted more than anything?

Stockholm consists of eight sections — one for each day of the drama. Each section is narrated from the point of view of one of the friends. In this way, the reader is introduced to their life stories and to the long-standing and complicated friendship that exists between them.

Selected Reviews

“Yedlin, a master at tone, grounds the antic comedy in reflections on aging, friendship, parenthood, life… A seriously funny take on death and dying.”

“deviously clever black comedy”

“The portraits of these four friends are so vivid that as I read, I felt that Avishay’s friends also became mine. Stockholm is unputdownable, full of intrigue, a bit of sadness, and a lot of humor.”

“A brilliant meditation on the intricacies of friendship, aging, ego, wounds and healing. Yedlin expertly peels back her complex characters’ layers to reveal insights, dark and humorous alike, about what it is to be alive and mortal

‍“Too funny, too sad, too real, and too preposterous – just like life. Stockholm is the most entertaining book I've read in a long time.”

“Noa Yedlin has a brilliant sense of Irony. In Stockholm, you will find your friends’ covert feelings and your closest family members’ most secret thoughts – and it’s going to be surprising, frightening, funny and liberating.”

“Bright, witty, irreverent and compassionate… an astute and hilarious study of the very building-blocks of the human condition: love, ambition, aging, friendship, envy and loyalty.”

“Hilarious, refreshing, tightly plotted and vividly written. An irresistible read.”

“A literary tour de force.”

“A perfect book.”

“Stockholm has the potential to become a very significant part of the literary canon.”

“The book has the capacity to unfold emotional nuances, some of them scathing… and super- intelligent nuances of expression, at a dizzying rate…Yedlin without a doubt is positioned at the forefront of contemporary writing in Hebrew.”

“Yedlin is a virtuoso of satire and small details… As in her previous book, House Arrest, (Winner of the 2013 Sapir Prize) once again much of the book is dedicated to undercutting the institutions and social milieus that are usually immune to criticism. In Stockholm, she undermines the sanctified institution of parents’ love for their children, and along the way she takes a stab at doctors, academics and others… It’s human, often painful, and altogether highly enjoyable.”

“What is sensational about Stockholm is the body: The way in which Yedlin hitches up her sharpened humor to her unique ability to close each segment with fine irony, her ability to control a convoluted plot down to the exact names of the most marginal characters, and to extricate scenes that are sometimes preposterous, sometimes grotesque, treating the essence of an aging body, or even a dead one, in a way that astonishes and at the same time appears completely natural.”

"One of the most enjoyable and wise books I have read in the last while… A seamless plot… smart observations, supreme writing… Just as the sun’s light purifies, Yedlin and her insights purify too. A highly recommended book. Cruel, like much of Yedlin’s beautiful writing.”

“The uniqueness of Yedlin’s captivating book is the enthralling description of the follies, deep wishes and illusions of the seventy-somethings when they do not feel threatened by death. Yedlin juggles ingeniously between genres — an adventure story, a detective story and a novel of philosophical musings on life overshadowed by approaching death.”

Prizes

Shortlisted for the Sapir Prize

Adaptations

Stockholm, (2018, 2020, Kan 11), an Israeli two-season TV series, written by Yedlin (the Israeli Best Mini-Series TV Award)

You Don’t Die Among Friends, (2020, VOX, TVNOW), a German remake of the series (best Scripted Format at 2021 International Format Awards and Best European Series at La Rochelle Festival De La Fiction 2021)

Finally (2022, SVT Sweden), a Swedish remake