Many will want to read this book as a biography of Stieg Larsson, the man who rose to fame, shooting the Scandinavian thriller to world-wide appreciation, with his Millenium Trilogy, published posthumously.
Ms Gabrielsson does not in fact claim that this book is a biography of Stieg Larsson, with whom she lived for over 30 years. She is in a position to tell interesting things, to supply information about the man and about the Millenium books. She does it with reserve and respect.
"There are things I want you to know"
The book is more autobiographic. "There are things I want you to know" is not, as first appears, a bit of clumsiness on the part of a translator or a "tell all" giveaway. These words come from a letter written to her by Stieg in 1977, before he left for a risky mission to Africa.
The book centres on their relationship, the love and comradeship between two rather unconventional individuals who met when he was 18 and she 19, at a meeting in Umea (North Sweden) of the National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, who stayed together, pooling their scant financial resources, supporting one another emotionally, sharing interests such as science fiction, the Bible, Scandinavian mythology, espionage, the battle against right-wing extremism, feminism, all of which emerge in the famous novels.
It is a story of pain. "This book...I wish I hadn't to write it..." she states. Stieg Larsson was not her husband, but for Eva he was more, her soulmate.
It is a story of anger, too, and bitter disappointment. The irony of Stieg's death at a moment when his first success was crystallizing, when the first novel was about to be published (after one publisher incredibly had sent the manuscript back without reading it, and another had asked for extensive re-writing!) is hard for Eva to bear.
Stieg Larsson collapsed after climbing 7 flights of stairs to go to the office on a day when he felt poorly and was supposed to go to hospital. This is something that Eva, who that day was at work in another town, needs time to rationalize. A family history of heart failure, too much coffee, too many cigarettes, junk food à la Lisbeth Salander. Too much stress, because of his anti-fascist political involvement which for decades involved threats on his life from right-wing extremist groups. Lack of appreciation of his journalistic work during the 20 years he was with TT, the Swedish news agency, where he was apparently refused promotion on the grounds that "Stieg Larsson cannot write".
There are surprises in Eva's book for those who have read the Millenium novels as thrillers to be devoured in a gulp:
- Sweden has long been seen as the country that remained neutral in World War II. We learn that Stieg's maternal grandfather, Severin Bostroem, had been imprisoned in Storsien internment camp along with other Swedish pacifists and communists.
- Stieg Larsson campaigned for years for accountability for the Internet, being aware that the great free space was a growing-place for hate crimes and sexual crimes.
- That Scandinavia has violent neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups is no longer a surprise. Since the writing of Eva's short book, the rampage by Anders Breivik in Norway has shocked the world.
Gabrielsson introduces us to a man who was not (or not yet) a famous author of best-sellers, but an engaged journalist, who intended his novels to "speak of values, justice, of journalism in the noble sense of the word, of the integrity and efficiency people bring into the job".
Stieg Larsson's estate
What happened after his death, by now an international thriller on its own, is summarized in the second part of this book in the form of extracts from Eva's diary.
She writes that when, during Stieg's lifetime, the publisher agreed the advance payment, Stieg wanted to set up a company with himself and Eva as partners, to handle the financial and intellectual property deriving from both their separate work.
After his sudden death, she learned with shock that nothing had actually been done about this. And that, since they were not legally married, the entire estate would go to Stieg's father and brother.
This left Eva not only alone and hurt, but with a certain financial worry, and with growing rage about the exploitation of the "Stieg Industry", as she describes the handling of the intellectual rights.
The fourth novel
She was then subjected to absurd pressure to hand over the manuscript for a fourth volume of the Mikael Blomqvist/Lisbeth Salander saga.
This work "should be" (as she says) in a computer used by Stieg belonging to the magazine "Expo", a computer which contained his journalistic sources and is therefore safeguarded by law. Eva's sister Britt delivered Stieg's back-pack, presumably with the computer in it, to Expo's offices immediately after his death. When in a 2006 Board meeting at Expo, the question arose: "Where is this computer?" the answer was: "We don't know".
Eva does give us some inkling of how the story proceeds:
"Lisbeth gradually breaks free of all her ghosts and enemies."
One day perhaps, Eva Gabrielsson will break free of all HER ghosts and enemies. Will we ever read the finished novel? Will Eva be the one to finish it?
This book does not tell us that.
Source:
"There are things I want you to know" about Stieg Larsson and me
By Eva Gabrielsson with Marie-Francoise Colombani
Translated from the French by Linda Coverdale.
7 Seven Stories Press, New York.
Original tile "Millénium, Stieg et moi" (Actes Sud 2011)
Copyright 2011 by Actes Sud.
eISBN 978-1-60980-364-3
Valerie Wilson - Valerie Wilson has lived, studied and worked in Scotland, Germany and Italy; mainly employed in multi-national companies in shipping ...
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