New title: ‘Fifty-five Meters Below the Surface’
The house across the yard is about to be demolished, but something is not right. Inside, a curtain suddenly flutters, one Bengt Gustav has never seen before. He enters the house even though he isn’t supposed to, and on the second floor he finds a door marked “1984.” It becomes the first in a series of time-travels, where Bengt Gustav is given the opportunity to fix everything that has gone wrong for his father through the years, all the things his father blames his alcoholism on. Only, things never get any better.
The only calm place left to Bengt Gustav is the water. Lowering himself into the bathtub, he thinks about Guillaume Néry, who for a long time held the world record in freediving. In the water, Bengt Gustav sees his lifeboat from below, the one he is in all by himself. The lifeboat that will save him when his father derails.
Bengt Gustav finally realizes that he has to let more people onto his lifeboat, right now. That will be the only way he and his father can find a way forward.
Fifty-five Meters Below the Surface is a warm, beautiful novel for middle graders about keeping your head above the surface and letting other people in.