The Man Who Left Too Soon Read online

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’m immensely grateful to all those who spoke to me for this book, in Sweden, the UK, the US and other points of the compass. Mark Campbell was a rock when I was putting together my British Crime Writing: an Encyclopaedia, and he has proved just as Gibraltar-like here (as indeed he has been in all my years of editing Crime Time), as was Tom Geddes, Scandinavian translator extraordinaire, particularly for this revised edition. An invaluable source was the Bloomsbury Square team of publishers MacLehose Press and Quercus: Lucy Ramsey, Nicci Pracca and Larsson’s UK publisher Christopher MacLehose, who gave me crucial help when I first entered the Larssonian world via interviews and articles for various UK newspapers and magazines.

  I owe a particular debt to one of Larsson’s own favourite writers, Val McDermid, who was generous with her time. The Rap Sheet’s Ali Karim, Larsson aficionado extraordinaire, supplied much useful material, and Maxim Jakubowski – who, apart from being the man who commissioned this book, availed me throughout of his usual crime fiction acumen. And I’m particularly grateful to the authors, critics and journalists who gave of their time, along with Swedish friends and professionals (including publishers, agents and members of the Swedish Embassy in London, past and present – with a special mention for Johan Theorin, providing me with invaluable Swedish scuttlebutt); they were – in alphabetical order:

  Karin Altenberg, Karin Alvtegen, Marcel Berlins, Ann Cleeves, N J Cooper, John Dugdale, Martin Edwards, R J Ellory, Dan Fesperman, Peter James, Rachel Johnson, Morag Joss, Camilla Läckberg, Mark Lawson, Dan Lucas, Julian Maynard-Smith, Steven Murray, Håkan Nesser, Kim Newman, Heather O’Donoghue, Sofia Odberg, The Rap Sheet, Robert Ryan, Mark Sanderson, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, Joan Smith, Henry Sutton, Frank Tallis, Andrew Taylor, Boyd Tonkin, Dan Waddell, Minette Walters, Carl-Otto Werkelid, my copyeditor Rodney Burbeck and my inestimable editor John Wordsworth.

  CONTENTS

    Title Page

    Acknowledgements

    Introduction

  1. Taken Too Soon

  2. The Relatives

  3. Death and Disputes

  4. Publishing Larsson

  5. What I Want to Say

  6. Stieg Larsson Today: Developments and Discoveries

  7. The Books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

  8. The Books: The Girl Who Played with Fire

  9. The Books: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest

  10. The Films

  11. The Millennium Tour: In Larsson’s Footsteps

    Appendix A – Stieg’s Rivals: Scandinavian Crime Fiction

    Appendix B – Writers on Stieg Larsson

    Plates

    Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  As the posthumous success of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy seems to grow to ever-more unprecedented levels, with worldwide sales in the millions, it is an apposite time to celebrate the life and work of an intriguing, courageous – and self-destructive – man. Of course, extremely talented people often possess a certain carelessness with regard to their own health, for a variety of reasons. Leonard Bernstein certainly matched Stieg Larsson in terms of a prodigious nicotine intake, but preferred haute cuisine to the junk food that was another element in Stieg Larsson’s own reckless lifestyle.

  Bernstein, however, believed he was one of the gods and that the health strictures which ordinary mortals were obliged to take note of simply didn’t apply to him – knowing that he was an immortal in terms of his music, he ill-advisedly applied this mindset to his much-abused body. With Stieg Larsson, who died in 2004 aged 50, the scenario was rather different, and the combination of what might be called a Protestant work ethic and a fierce desire to right the wrongs of the world were partly behind the cavalier approach to his own wellbeing. What counted was the work – not maintaining the instrument that carried it out.

  It goes without saying that Larsson’s early death is a crucial element in the mythic qualities that his life and work have come to possess. But it is the innovation and intelligence of the Millennium Trilogy (along with its trenchant and fierce social critiques, so much a part of Larsson’s own crusading personality) that are among the real reasons behind the all-conquering acclaim the books have engendered.

  Just as Larsson cannily pays out chunks of information to his readers to create a total picture, it seemed to me appropriate to attempt something similar in this book. The approach I have taken is piecemeal, utilising a variety of elements – Stieg’s life, his influential journalistic career as a courageous fighter against extremist organisations, his relatives, his publishers, his translators, the successful movies being made from his books – and the acrimonious dispute over his legacy. I’ve been lucky enough to speak to most of the people concerned, but like virtually all readers of the novels, I never had a chance to meet the author, for whom the phrase ‘taken too soon’ could have been coined.

  Larsson aficionados will be aware that his biography is, to some extent, to be found in his books – hence the concentration here on the three novels of his trilogy, with biographical data built into these sections rather than hived off into separate chapters, though his life is addressed separately. So at the centre of this study (to be read, of course, only after reading the novels themselves) is a thoroughgoing examination of the phenomenally successful novels in the trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest, comprising one of the most striking and innovative trilogies in modern fiction. And for all their faults – discussed here alongside their felicities – the auguries are that the books will join the pantheon of the very finest popular literature, to be read for generations to come.

  Barry Forshaw, London 2011s

  CHAPTER 1

  TAKEN TOO SOON

  At the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association Dagger awards in London’s Grosvenor House Hotel in October 2008, there was a ‘no-show’ for one of the awards. An author had not appeared for a photo opportunity with the other nominees, and the clock was ticking. Where was Stieg Larsson? The Swedish author had been nominated for his astonishingly successful debut novel, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and was the only author who could not be found for the photo call. It was a publicity opportunity that Stieg Larsson would never make. He had died before any of his three novels were published in his native Sweden, let alone seeing them become runaway bestsellers, or before they reached other shores in translation, going on to be a worldwide publishing phenomenon. And the fact that not everyone in the UK’s top organisation for crime writers knew that the debut award was in fact a posthumous nomination was a measure of the unprecedented speed with which his star had risen. What’s more, having died suddenly before writing a will, he left behind a confused situation that has led to a bitter fracas over his considerable literary and financial legacy.

  In fact, the Larsson story is even more remarkable: had he not become a bestselling crime writer, he would be remembered as something of a hero, a man who took on some dangerous neo-Nazi opponents, and whose premature death prompted much sinister speculation. How had he died? Was it simply – as the official medical verdict had it – a massive heart attack? Or did his enemies, who often told him that his days were numbered, have a hand in his demise?

  Sales of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had reached the million mark in Sweden (under its original Swedish title Män som hatar kvinnor – ‘Men who hate women’) even before it was discovered by foreign publishers, and Larsson was already celebrated as a courageous, campaigning journalist, taking on far-Right groups. He also fought for the rights of battered women and could add impeccable feminist credentials to his impressive politica
l résumé. He was, however, most 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. He was known in the UK to readers of the British-based international magazine Searchlight, which campaigns against racism and fascism, while in Sweden he became founder and editor of its Swedish equivalent, Expo – still going strong after his death.

  So what was the secret of the unprecedented success of his first novel in the Millennium Trilogy? His UK publisher, Quercus, was also responsible for the similarly out-of-the-blue sales triumph of Stef Penney’s The Tenderness of Wolves, and launched the paperback of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with a print run of 200,000 copies; within a short time, the book’s sales had reached unprecedented levels. A modestly sized independent, Quercus does not have the advertising spend of bigger publishers and has relied on publishing a judicious choice of outstanding novels – promoted by word-of-mouth recommendation – the latter very much a factor in the success of the Stieg Larsson books.

  The protagonists of Dragon Tattoo are a trenchantly characterised 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 punk appearance (facial jewellery, ill-matched clothes and the dragon tattoo of the title). But despite her forbidding looks, 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 soon realised Salander was an irresistible new character in the genre.

  Stieg Larsson was born Karl Stig-Erland Larsson on 15 August 1954 in Skelleftehamn, a small town on the Gulf of Bothnia in the region of Västerbotten, on the northeast coast of Sweden, 400 miles north of Stockholm. He was the scion of a northern Swedish family, but was not, initially, raised by his parents, who for a variety of reasons – including financial ones – felt that his grandparents might better supply that function until he was nine years old. Stieg’s grandfather was clearly a significant figure in the author’s life. He was a man of political commitment who was prepared to risk going to prison for his beliefs, and in fact he did just that, suffering incarceration during the Second World War for his open opposition to the Nazis. It’s not hard to see here a template for Stieg Larsson’s similar courage in confronting dangerous right-wing opponents.

  When his grandfather died, Stieg took the event very badly, and a period of adjustment was necessary when he moved back to the parental home with his father Erland and his brother Joakim. The two boys shared a bedroom, and I spoke to Joakim about how keen his brother was on the pleasures of narrative and storytelling. His childhood preferences included Enid Blyton (interestingly, at the time the famous children’s writer was undergoing a subtle ban in her own country in the broadcasting media, as the BBC disapproved of what they considered to be the poor quality of her writing). The much-loved adventures of children’s heroine Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren were also a favourite, and these were to be an intriguing influence on Larsson’s later writing. It is now widely assumed that his tenacious heroine Lisbeth Salander is a radically reworked – and tattooed – modern version of Lindgren’s creation, with a polymorphous sex life.

  Larsson’s father, Erland, now approaching 80, is a youthful-looking and typical northern Swede – modest and low-key. He told me that he remembers buying his young son a typewriter, but the incessant drumming of the keys so upset neighbours that it had to be moved into a basement room in the apartment building.

  After national service, Stieg began a 30-year stint as the UK magazine Searchlight’s Scandinavian correspondent. He had decided to devote his life to fighting fascism along with religious and racial intolerance in the 1980s and 1990s, writing books on honour killings and the extreme Right in Sweden. This was a dangerous time for a writer of Larsson’s stamp, and a car bomb had killed a fellow investigative journalist. But Stieg had a source of strength in his partner, Eva Gabrielsson, an architectural historian who shared his political convictions. Of course, any woman who chooses to live with a man with Larsson’s combative lifestyle has to sport a certain toughness herself, and the couple developed strategies for their safety. If they sat in a restaurant or bar together, they would arrange it so both were looking at opposite entrances. Ironically, however, Larsson’s real nemesis was to come from an unexpected source – one very close to home.

  Larsson was an active member of the Kommunistika Arbetareförbundet, the Communist Workers League. During this period he also worked as a photographer. Further burnishing his Trotskyite credentials, he edited the journal Fjärde Internationalen. But his life was not all politically-motivated causes; Larsson was known to be a particularly keen admirer of science fiction, and his knowledge and enthusiasm for the genre was prodigious (it went far beyond being simply a fan: the Anglo-Swedish journalist Dan Lucas, who worked with him, told me that Larsson had a forensic grasp of the entire field and he could talk knowledgeably about all of its best writers). This attention to detail, in which knowledge was vacuumed up without apparent effort, was characteristic of his entire approach to his life and work – if Larsson took an interest in a subject he would acquire (almost by symbiosis) a total grasp of every element involved. Utilising his knowledge of the field, he worked, either as editor or co-editor, on various science fiction fanzines, among them Fijagh! and Sfären. He also held the position of president of his country’s most prestigious science fiction organisation, the Skandinavisk Förening for Science Fiction, popularly known as SFSF. Inheriting his father’s talents for the visual arts, from 1977 to 1999 Larsson held down a job as a graphic designer for an important Swedish news agency, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå.

  It was inevitable that with his deeply felt political convictions, organisational skills and journalistic savvy, Larsson would at some point bring together these different strands of experience to forge something that he could feel proud of creating. He decided to found the Swedish Expo Foundation – which was inspired by the similarly motivated Searchlight Foundation in Britain – with a brief to ‘counteract the growth of the extreme Right and the white power culture in schools and among young people’. He was, of course, the natural choice as editor for the foundation house magazine, Expo, subsequently to become the inspiration for the fictional magazine Millennium, which the journalist Mikael Blomkvist works on in Larsson’s trilogy. With a series of lacerating and well researched articles, Larsson took on (in no uncertain terms) Sweden’s far Right and the organisations arguing for racial purity. As he was a particularly vocal and unflinching exponent of his views, it was inevitable that he would soon put himself in the firing line for a series of death threats, and this was to affect his mode of living for the rest of his short life.

  Before the creation of the Expo Foundation in 1995, a remarkable and controversial phenomenon held sway in Sweden – a phenomenon that may be said to have been the sand in the oyster that created the pearl of its foundation. Despite the country’s abiding image of tolerance and liberality, the ‘white power’ music scene held sway, and enjoyed a surprisingly large following, particularly among the young. It was a caustic, tendentious fusion of punkinspired rock and crudely white supremacist lyrics – if the noun ‘lyrics’ might be applicable to the words of these uncompromising anthems, the performers barking out their songs with the same aggressive snarl that Johnny Rotten and others had affected in the UK. And Sweden was, amazingly, the world’s most assiduous progenitor of such incendiary material; not even a nascent neo-Nazi movement in Germany could claim to be in this particular musical vanguard.

  1995 was a significant year in race relations in Sweden, with seven murders which were related to far-Right extremism. The agenda of such organisations included a targeted provocation of the far Left, and an argument might be made that both groups needed each other as nemeses in order to motivate their followers. Certainly, the Expo Foundation established in that year was designed to counterac
t the burgeoning influence of the extreme Right which had taken a particular hold in schools and among young people. Apart from Stieg Larsson, the Expo organisers included like-minded journalists, teachers and a variety of motivated young people worried by what they saw as a growing fascist tendency among their peers. Expo, aware of how it might be perceived, attempted to maintain a rigorous distance from links to particular political groups or parties, and its avowed intention was to safeguard ‘democracy and freedom of speech against racist, anti-Semitic and totalitarian tendencies throughout society’.

  When the first issue of the Expo magazine was published it certainly achieved one of its principal aims: to act as an irritant to the far-Right groups it saw as its bitter opponents. The magazine was quickly established as the focus for an intense hate campaign from neo-Nazi organisations, and everyone connected with the publication was obliged to take extra security measures, as they realised that the personal safety which they had taken for granted was no longer guaranteed. There were destructive attacks on the printing factory at which Expo was produced, and by 1996 important national newspapers such as Aftonbladet were recording the divisive conflicts within Swedish society.

  The magazine was bankrolled by funds accrued via lectures, magazine subscriptions and advertising sales, and survived in a turbulent media market. Some of the first, pioneering group of editorial staff stood down in 1998, many of them exhausted from leading a similar lifestyle to that of Stieg Larsson (that is to say: extensive work on anti-Nazi causes funded by punishing full-time work schedules elsewhere). Three of the original staff remained and decided to give the magazine a crucial overhaul, although the basic crusading ethos remained. The magazine is still in rude health, six years after Stieg Larsson’s death, and is still staffed by journalists who work on a largely voluntary basis (the current editor-in-chief is Daniel Poohl).