A “determinedly
girls-eye view of events” has captivated Sweden this
month, as the third and final volume in 70-year-old
Swedish writer Elsie Johansson’s trilogy hits
the stands with what’s been praised as “an unusual kind
of bildungsroman.” The new one, Nancy, is the
latest installment in the emotionally charged story
of young Nancy Petersson’s childhood in rural Uppland,
following the tumultuous events in the wake of her father’s
death. Exchanging pastoral village life for “a dingy
little backstreet flat” in Uppsala during wartime rationing,
Nancy and her mother delve into the town’s proletarian
dross. Drudgery at a job sorting mail in the post office
is only exacerbated when mom up and moves in with a
“friendly butcher” she’s met at work. The earlier volumes
in the trilogy — all of which are standalone works —
were the highly acclaimed 1996 title Glassbirds
(which opens with the discovery of a strange suitcase
under an attic staircase) and 1999’s Wild Flower
(about Nancy’s later teenage years, which involve heartthrob
Lars). Some 60,000 copies of the new one have been sold
since its January publication; together the trilogy
is up to some 350,000 copies to date. Rights to all
three books in the series have been sold to Gyldendal
in Denmark, and we’re told a deal is pending in Germany.
See agent Linda Michaels.
Meanwhile
in Sweden, Joakim Pirinen has checked in with
an “absolutely mad, dada-ish, and very talented” prose
debut called The Swedish Monkey, which takes
off to hilarious points unknown (“A challenge for a
translator!” was all our source could report at press
time), and clearly incorporates the zany gestalt of
the young writer’s well-known comics. Pirinen has also
been known for his radio drama writing. A first printing
of 7,500 copies is going fast, with no foreign deals
reported as yet; see Ordfront for rights. And
finally in Sweden, a note of congratulations to Gao
Xingjian, whose books continue to rise up the list.
A brief
word in from Holland, which sees bestselling author
Ronald Giphart return to the list with the 1992
novel I Love You Too (we’re told the book is
hot again due to a related film release). The politically
active, thirtysomething author is said to be “a great
hero for young writers in Holland,” and more gala parties
appear to be in the offing: his 1996 novel Phileine
Zegt Sorry is reportedly under contract with the
Oscar-winning production team of Antonia’s Line,
which was directed by Dutch filmmaker Marleen Gorris.
On the
subject of films, all of France has been howling over
Pierre Pelot’s The Wolves’ Pact, which
is based on a mega-blockbuster movie, apparently one
of the biggest productions in the history of French
cinema. Briefly, at the end of the 18th century, the
Chevalier de Fronsac and his American-Indian blood brother
Mani are sent to the province of Gévaudan to inquire
about an “unknown creature.” It turns out not to be
a wolf per se, but something “far beyond reason.” The
upshot is “a detective novel, a love story, a fantasy,
with the tremendous rhythm of an action movie, all rolled
into one!” No foreign sales have been reported as yet;
see the French Publishers’ Agency for rights.
Also on the list in France, Philippe Delerm dines
on in the tradition of his 1999 collection We Could
Almost Eat Outside, and has just published Siesta
Assassination, a series of 40 short evocative texts
(“as delicious as ever,” says his publisher) that meditate
on life’s small dramas, “those brief moments when your
perfect happiness is suddenly invaded.” The 1999 work
was published in 30 languages (including a Picador
edition in English) and Gallimard expects the
same or better of this book. The new one has already
sold 170,000 copies in France; see the FPA.
In Italy,
Susanna Tamaro has rocketed to the top of the
list with Answer Me, in which an elderly Italian
woman writes a letter of confession and advice to her
granddaughter, who is estranged and living in America.
Tamaro gained wide exposure in 1996 with her debut novel
Follow Your Heart, which sold millions of copies
in Italy alone. A second novel, Anima Mundi,
which investigated communist prisons for Italians in
Yugoslavia after World War II, sold 400,000 copies in
1997 (and was savaged by Italian critics as “a storehouse
of clichés”; the author retorted that her anti-communism
was at issue, and not her prose). In any case, despite
taking a few knocks, Tamaro has remained staunchly in
favor of keeping her particular brand of sentimentality
in the arts: she once lamented that too many artists
today have “a limited horizon that goes from the umbilicus
to the feet, and this is very sad.”
Meanwhile,
the diabolical Ingrid Noll is back in action
in Germany, where Blissful Widow has landed at
#8, giving readers another go at Noll’s knack for “the
Eurocrime novel that focuses on the internal lives of
its characters rather than fast-paced action.” Noll’s
earlier mysteries have been praised for the deftness
with which her collection of seemingly unsympathetic
characters lures readers into the author’s unabashedly
“warped sense of reality.” In Hell Hath No Fury,
for example, Noll details the angst-ridden fallout when
“a strait-laced spinster on the wrong side of middle
age tumbles head over heels in love with a family man.”
The grim but riveting work highlights, as one reviewer
put it, “the futility and total desolation of a relationship
where each is using the other for their own ends.” Read
at your own risk. Noll was born in Shanghai in 1935;
her novel The Evening Breeze is Cold had a first
run of 100,000 copies. HarperCollins UK published
Noll’s first three titles, but not the subsequent two
books, so be advised that the search is on for a new
English publisher, according to Hedwig Janes
at Diogenes, which controls rights.
Lastly,
Catherine Clement’s novel Theo’s Odyssey
has wandered all the way to Brazil, and hits the charts
there at #8 (having stopped off along the way to be
published in the US in 1999 by Arcade — it was
originally in French). The work, some may recall, chronicles
a 14-year-old boy who is diagnosed with a mysterious
and terminal tropical illness, and embarks upon a world
tour of religious sites with his wise Aunt Martha, who
impresses upon him the metaphysical subtleties of the
world’s spiritual traditions. Comparisons to certain
other bestselling juggernauts were coming fast and furious
upon the book’s publication, though one reviewer opined:
“Teenagers don’t act like that. This book almost doesn’t
deserve to be compared to Sophie’s World.” Others,
however, dubbed it a “perky pilgrim’s progress.”
