News from John
Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2014 6:40 pm
Today, John Ajvide Lindqvist posted a new item on his blog. It's of course in Swedish, but I have translated it (with some help from Google Translate) for those who find that fact inconvenient. I also made a few words into links, for those who would otherwise not know what John is talking about. 
Yesterday I was at a meeting with Pelle and Jan-Erik from Ordfront to talk about Himmelstrand. They liked it. Felt really good about it. Today I talked with TT who would write a note about the book which is due out in the fall, probably in October.
It is by far the trickiest book I've written, in every sense of the word. I have nearly 400 pages of notes just where I try to understand what it is I'm doing, immense numbers of ideas and possible story threads that have been weeded out along the way.
It took me for example half a year of writing before I realized that the original fourteen people in five caravans were simply too many. I started over again with only four caravans and ten people. And a dog and a cat.
It's about going out to get into, as Winnerbäck says. The ten people wake up one morning and find that they somehow have been moved from the camping ground where they stood the night before to a field with short grass that stretches as far as the eye can see in all directions.
The plot then consists of a scampering between these people's (and the dog's!) minds as they try to adapt and understand. When they eventually move out into the field, it turns out that things are happening to them, they are confronted with layers of themselves, images from their past that they have tried to bury rise to the surface and become real. It's pretty nasty. And a little fun here and there.
The book's core is thus ten portraits and I hope everyone will be as delighted as I am about Lennart and Olof ("Remember the old Center leaders," as they say), two middle-aged dairy farmers camping together, the former soccer pro Peter, the photo model Isabelle, the U.S. devotee Donald and a few others. Benny the dog, of course.
It is four years since I published the novel Little Star and I look forward to riding the carousel again. For a while it was a bit much, but now it will be fun. There will be interviews and appearances and the book fair and we might meet at some book signing.
Granted, if your financial situation allowed it that is to say.