I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist

While much of what I read is crime and thrillers, I am partial to a little horror. I came across the writing of John Ajvide Lindqvist with his debut novel, Let The Right One In. This vampire tale went on to be a bestseller and inspired two films, a Swedish language version and an American remake. Until now I had not read anything of his work since, though I was aware he had written a number of books after his debut success. 

I Am Behind You is a very different tale to Let The Right One In and might best be described as a surreal supernatural chiller. Four families, strangers to each other, staying at the same campsite, wake up one morning to find that the campsite is gone, that they’re all alone in an endless field of grass. There’s nothing else as far as the eye can see; the grass is all of uniform length; the sky is a pure and featureless blue - not a cloud, not the moon, not the sun.

The four families are from starkly different backgrounds and the reader can guess that they provide fertile ground for conflict. There’s Peter and Isabelle, he a former footballer and now a successful personal trainer, she a catwalk model. They have a six-year-old daughter, Molly. A camping holiday is something Isabelle in particular is unused to, preferring a villa or a five-star hotel, but their marriage is in difficulty and Peter has insisted. Then there’s Stefan, his wife, Carina, and their nine-year old son Emil. Stefan and Carina run a small-town store and Stefan in particular might be seen as boring and a bit of a geek. Lennart and Olof, two farmers, are camping together having co-habited in a non-sexual, companionable relationship, since both their wives ran off. Finally, there is retired couple Majvor and her overbearing husband Donald. Like Lenart and Olof, their children have all grown up and are not with them on the camping trip. Donald and Majvor have brought their dog, Benny, while Lennart and Olof have brought their cat.

There is no main character in I Am Behind You, rather the novel is told from alternating viewpoints, including those of the dog and cat. The story begins with the characters waking up on the morning their lives have changed, discovering their surreal and unsettling new reality. At first, apart from the sheer disconcerting weirdness of their situation, the characters main concerns are practical: where are we? How can we get back to civilisation? Where can we get food and water, for they only have limited supplies. It’s not long though before things start to happen and as the story pans out this environment they’ve been transported to becomes more threatening. Along the way we learn of the characters’ back stories, the emotional and psychological issues they have feeding into the narrative and how they respond to their ever-creepier circumstances.

I Am Behind You is not a particularly gory book, rather this is a tale of psychological and supernatural suspense. Some reviewers on Amazon have complained the book is just too odd and that they weren’t able to get into it, but I didn’t find this an issue. The author is often compared to Stephen King and I can see that here. This is like a much more unsettling version of King’s novel The Dome. I Am Behind You is the first in a trilogy, the second of which has just been translated into English. In fact, I bought and read this book precisely because I have received a review copy of the next in the series, titled I Always Find You. Needless to say, I will read and post a review of that title shortly.

4 out of 5 stars