At the Crime Writers' Association awards dinner this summer, a desperate call
went out: where was Stieg Larsson? The Swedish author had been nominated for
his astonishingly successful debut novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,
and was needed for a photocall. But Larsson was not available. He was dead
before any of his novels (there are only three) reached these shores.
And the very fact that even some clued-up fellow crime writers were not aware
that this was a posthumous nomination demonstrates the dizzying speed with
which his star has risen. He lived to experience the first of his books
become a phenomenon in his homeland, but died without seeing his
international success. Or, for that matter, the unseemly family scramble
over his legacy.
In fact, the Larsson story is liberally laced with the sort of dark detail so
beloved of crime writers and had he not become a bestselling author, he
would still be remembered as something of a hero.
As a courageous campaigning journalist, Larsson took on some dangerous
opponents, neo-Nazis and other groups from the far Right, ensuring that his
death at the age of 50 prompted much speculation. How had he died? Was it
simply - as the official verdict had it - a heart attack? Or did his
enemies, who often told him that his days were numbered, have a hand in his
demise?
He was celebrated as an authority on extremist organisations and his battles
with them often put him in physical danger - something that seemed not to
faze him. His name was known in this country from the pages of Searchlight,
the anti-fascist and anti-racist magazine, while the journal he launched in
Sweden, Expo, is still going strong after his death.
Stieg Larsson was born 400 miles north of Stockholm and grew up in the coastal
town of Umea. His father, Erland, is a typical northern Swede - modest and
low-key. He remembers buying his young son a typewriter, but the incessant
drumming of the keys so upset the neighbours that he had to be moved into a
basement room in the apartment building.
After National Service, Stieg began his 30-year stint as Searchlight's
Scandinavian correspondent. He had decided to devote his life to fighting
fascism along with religious and racial intolerance. He wrote books on
honour killings and the extreme Right in Sweden. This was a dangerous time
for a writer of Larsson's stamp - a car bomb had killed a fellow
investigative journalist.
But Stieg had a source of strength: his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, an
architectural historian. Any woman who chooses to live with a man with
Larsson's combative lifestyle has to develop a certain toughness herself and
the couple had strategies for their safety. If they sat in a restaurant or
bar together, they would arrange it so that both were looking at opposite
entrances. Larsson's real nemesis was to come from an unexpected source -
one much closer to home.
“He was a difficult man, but brilliant and multifaceted,” Eva Gedin, of
Norstedts, his Swedish publisher, said. “Many Swedes were aware of his
bravery in tackling extremist organisations. As for Stieg - well, he could
be infuriating, and he wasn't afraid of making enemies. But most of his
enemies were well chosen; as for his friends and associates, frustration
with him might result from the fact that he was clearly asking his body to
do more than it could cope with.”
Gedin speaks about the late author with a mixture of admiration and regret.
“He came to my attention via the recommendation of another journalist, who
rang me up and said, 'You may know about Stieg as an anti-fascist
journalist, but did you know he is also an amazing novelist? You have to
read this book.' And so we discovered The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
“When I read it, I told him - on the spot - that we wanted to sign him to a
three-book contract. His response was a quiet one. Generally speaking, he
was a surprisingly quiet, shy person, except in one area. He was boastful
about himself only in respect of his amazing work ethic.
“You were always told - in great detail - how he'd copy-edited his magazine,
fired off myriad letters, written several chapters, and generally crammed a
week of activity into 24 hours. One could always forgive him all this, as he
wasn't really self-aggrandising.”
Sales of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first in the Millennium
Trilogy, had reached the million mark in Sweden even before Christopher
MacLehose took it on for the independent publisher Quercus. So what is the
secret of its success? Quercus - also responsible for the similarly
out-of-the-blue triumph of Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves -
announced a print run of 200,000 copies for the paperback; the hardback has
sold 52,000 copies to date. As Quercus does not have the advertising budget
of larger publishers, it relies on a judicious choice of outstanding novels
and word of mouth, the latter very much a factor in the success of Larsson.
The protagonists of Dragon Tattoo are a remarkably well-drawn duo;
disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist and youthful computer hacker Lisbeth
Salander. Salander, in particular, is something completely new in crime
fiction; she has an alienating appearance (facial jewellery, ill-matched
clothes and the dragon tattoo of the title). But despite her forbidding
appearance, she is immensely vulnerable, struggling with personal demons. As
she and her journalist colleague investigate the disappearance of the niece
of an ailing tycoon, readers realised that Salander was an irresistible new
character in the genre.
The duo will return next year in the second volume of the trilogy, The Girl
Who Played With Fire, in which Salander is wanted for a triple murder
while Blomkvist tries desperately to clear her name.
MacLehose has long been the doyen of foreign crime fiction in translation (he
launched the career of Henning Mankell, the pioneer of Nordic crimewriting,
here) and is basking in Larsson's success. He speaks of Larsson with regret
and annoyance: regret at the loss of such a considerable talent and
annoyance that Larsson appeared to be oblivious to all warnings about his
health.
“He smoked over 60 cigarettes a day and was a classic workaholic,” MacLehose
said. “To say that he didn't give his body a chance almost understates the
case. And like many driven men, he tended not to listen to the counsel of
those around him - he was warned again and again that he should look after
himself.”
Similarly, according to MacLehose, problems involving Larsson's estate could
have been avoided. “Between the eight months when he delivered his
manuscripts to his Swedish publisher and his death, his brother among others
told him that he should make a will. But he simply never got around to it.”
MacLehose is referring to the one sour note in the author's success - the
messy situation regarding his royalties, with claims and counterclaims
involving various family members. Matters are complicated by Swedish laws
regarding intestate deaths, in which the State takes 50 per cent of the
deceased's earnings before relatives can make a claim.
But MacLehose's comments about Larsson's carelessness with his health and
finances are made in sadness rather than anger and the publisher talks of
his overriding feeling for the writer being one of loss: the loss of a man
who was both a crusader for honourable causes and a writer of exuberant
skill.
“He was the best kind of hero,” Gedin said. “He simply got on with the job,
and never seemed to be after any kind of personal glory. Perhaps some might
call taking on some sinister organisations foolhardy, but I - and many
others - had only admiration for him.
“It was obvious that something had to give. Which is not to say that he
was self-destructive. Outwardly, even before the success of Dragon Tattoo,
he was a man of influence and importance; he charmed the ex-minister of
immigration, Mona Sahlin - a woman many consider to be a possible future
prime minister of Sweden. And, of course, he lectured on the tactics of
far-Right groups in France, Germany and at Scotland Yard.”
His Swedish and English publishers are agreed that one myth should be quashed:
the notion that Larsson's death in 2004 meant that he did not live to see
his success as a novelist. “It was pleasing to those around him to see him
quietly savouring that he had made such a success of the second career,”
Gedin said.
And what about the other oft-repeated part of the Larsson legend, that his
death was somehow suspicious? That the failure of his health was caused by
some sinister chemical assistance, like Alexander Litvinenko's London
poisoning? On this Gedin is emphatic. “Absolutely not. It might help Stieg's
legend if it were true that he was the victim of some kind of poisoning.
But, frankly, there was this almost casually self-destructive element: the
massive self-imposed workload, the heavy smoking and so forth. But the fact
that his death was not a homicide doesn't make him any less of a hero. That
is exactly what he was.”
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, translated by Reg
Keeland
Quercus, £14.99 By
the book
If you have things to do don't pick up this book.
This is a page turner, and you cannot put it down.
Wonderful writing by Larsson.
Brit, Chester, USA