In Life Goes On, the second part of Karin Wahlberg’s series of novels, we see more of the people in and around the hospital in the Swedish town of Ekstad in the 1950s.
Nancy Brandt the doctor’s wife is expecting her third child and preparing the move to the new house. She has a lot to look forward to, not least “the wife’s day off”, the idea of the radio presenter Lennart Hyland that housewives should have a free day when they let their husbands look after the children and the home. Unfortunately, her husband Egon is rather too distracted. His job as senior physician is a demanding one, which means long evenings for Nancy with the radio as her only company.
At the hospital, Ella-Kristin the student nurse is worried about Evelina Winnerstrand, who has been admitted with life-threatening stab wounds in her abdomen after the vicious attack on the front porch. No one knows who the attacker was, and the peace of the small town is shaken.
With a generous dose of nostalgia, Karin Wahlberg evokes the atmosphere of a bygone era as she paints a panorama of everyday life in a small town, full of joys and sorrows.