Almost good at life

A deeply-human and affecting narrative about a love greater than any words.

Nästan bra på livet is a moving story about a father’s love for his daughter who is unlike everyone else. When much-longed-for baby Lova is born, her arrival is joyful but marred by complications. Even though her father doubts his ability to be a good parent, he loves her beyond words.

But soon, anxiety wells up within him: why is it so hard to connect with Lova? Is she really developing like other children? And how does one connect with a child that lives in a world of her own? As everyday life becomes more difficult to deal with, father and daughter begin to drift apart.

ALMOST GOOD AT LIFE is an auto-fictive story about faltering as a human being, and about bouncing back, proving it’s never too late to find one’s way home and to rebuild the most important of relationships. A brave and moving story akin to Marti Leimbach’s Daniel Isn’t Talking and Love, Anthony by Lisa Genova.

The author

Born in 1973, Conny Palmkvist grew up in the small town of Jonstorp in southern Sweden. He began writing when he was just fourteen, processing his father’s death through a series of poems that spanned far beyond the backwater where he lived.

Conny spent several years glued to his trusty old typewriter, slowly developing his characteristic style. Ironically enough, it was another tragic event that led him to the publication of his debut novel in 2005, written as he worked through the loss of his mother.

The manuscript took just five days to sell, with the rights being snapped up by one of Sweden’s most respected publishing houses. It proved to be a great success with both readers and critics.

Since then, Conny has written another ten novels, which have been recognised by a number of Swedish literary awards, including Helsingborgs Dagblads kulturpris, Umeå Novellpris and Selmapriset. The latter was awarded for his depiction of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra.

Conny is often praised for his ability to capture a range of voices in his novels, and has featured a whole host of characters over the years—from a seventeen-year-old girl in a death camp to an elderly man living out his final days at ninety. His signature is, and will always be, his close perspective, as well as the poetic undercurrent in his texts.

Conny lives with his family in Helsingborg southern Sweden.

Press reviews

‘Almost Good at Life is not only an autobiographical but also an extremely self-revealing depiction of a father’s relationship with a different daughter. It really touched my heart, not least as a direct result of the intensity of the exquisitely beautiful language.’ – Norra Skåne

‘It’s not just about understanding the quality of life of a child who is different and her parents. What is ultimately revealed in Almost Good at Life is that each person exists based on their own conditions. The world would be a more loving place if we admit that without judgment.’ – Sydsvenskan

‘This also applies to Almost Good in Life, which is an extremely personal book that Palmkvist probably wrote with his own heart blood. I also like his frugal style, his structured balance, where lightness and elegance characterize his prose. ‘ - Skånska Dagbladet

‘This autobiographical story has a language full of poetic power, of beautiful prose that occasionally turns into poetry. The text is stripped of all literary exterior, pure as rainwater. It was impossible to take a break from reading.‘ - Ölandsbladet

‘The author Conny Palmkvist tells moving and with a lovely language about strong fatherly love, worries about how the daughter Lova's life will be and her doubts about being enough.‘ - M-Magazine

‘The textual material secreted in this almost biological process is crystalline and glittering. It is perfect but not lifeless. Like a heartbeat, the sentences hammer out a story of incessant pain.‘ - Helsingborgs Dagblad

‘Almost Good in Life" is a book full of love and doubt.‘ - Dalarnas tidning

‘A beautiful book about parenting that inevitably evokes strong emotions whether you are a parent or not.‘
- BTJ (Published in BTJ Booklet No. 2, 2021.)

‘This is a brave story about not having the strength at the same time as you have to. About doubting one's love while loving. And about sometimes allowing himself to give up and then get up again.‘ - Blekings Läns Tidning

‘Palmkvist's novels like to express great emotions, a different way of looking at life and the world around them. He is a brilliant word artist, who usually appears in a seemingly simple language costume. I have written it before, when I reviewed one of his novels, that he has an outstanding ability to shape the silence between people, an ability that makes me think of Per Gunnar Evander.‘ - Northern Scania