Street Car on Milky Way (1996, 2015)

A little boy looks gazes down upon the alley where the street light draws shadows between the trees. Down the street stands a man who looks up to what was once his childhood home. In his memory he carries the image of a street car frozen on the tracks of the snow-covered Milky Way alley. But why does the dark street car linger in the falling snow? And how does the boy know that the dead have their homes on Milky Way?

Street Car on Milky Way portrays a search for the memories of a dead father. A father who would disappear – like one Christmas Eve when he suddenly took the train to Paris – and send postcards from exotic places across the world. A father who was irresistible when he reappeared and recounted all the marvels he had experienced.

Street Car on Milky Way is a childhood depiction with an exceptional glow and poetic imagination. It depicts a Stockholm of the fifties, where the artist and journalist circles of the Old Downtown are viewed from the little child’s magically conjuring perspective. With Street Car on Milky Way, Niklas Rådström concludes his trilogy of standalone semi-autobiographical novels, preceded by the much-loved and widely read The Moon Knows Not and While Time Thinks of Something Else.