Broad Sound

On an unseasonably cold night in late October, I took the subway to Mariatorget to reluctantly attend a party my Swedish publisher was holding for another one of their writers. I turned left at the pedestrian bridge, leaving the traffic behind for a quiet street, from which I entered the courtyard to a little 17th-century building where the publisher had their offices. From the courtyard, I heard my publisher reading aloud from a gushing review that had been published that morning in one of the major papers.

I snuck in the back, hung up my coat, and nestled behind the last of about 30 people facing the front of the room. Anders, my publisher, was standing with microphone in hand, as was Tove, the author. Behind the two of them was a five-foot-high cardboard cutout of Tove’s book cover, and behind that, I saw, to my horror, an acoustic guitar leaning against the wall. Tove was in her mid-50s, with a calm face that had sharp features. The more different the writer was from me, demographically, the easier it was to be happy for them rather than jealous. But I was still struggling. Her debut and mine had come out at around the same time, and while hers had been named a finalist for the Swedish equivalent to the Pulitzer and was getting wildly praised, the only press that had come out for mine was a book blogger who said she didn’t care for the book but imagined there might be other people who would.

But as a writer, you learn to hide pettiness and jealousy. You try, at least. And I had read Tove’s book the night before and found that it was good. Pitched, weirdly, as Swedish Cormac McCarthy, it was strange and funny. A writer who was funny got a lot of leeway with me, even if they had the audacity to be more successful.

“How does it feel to have it happen all at once like this?” Anders asked. He was bald, with a Portland-ish beard and stylish glasses, probably in his late 40s and hip.

Tove was quiet. She took a little breath. Then she said, “Life is the same, really. I come home and no one has cleaned up.”

The crowd laughed. She didn’t smile. She was from northern Sweden, a reticent and sparsely populated area.

Anders continued: “How did you come to find this truly unique style in which you’ve written—this distilled clarity?”

Tove thought about it for a second. “I took away the adverbs. Then I guess I took away the adjectives. Then I stopped capitalizing proper nouns. And then I guess I took away all the punctuation except for periods. And that felt right.”

“How did it feel, last night, when the finalists were announced, to be sitting there next to Kerstin Ekman, both of you nominated for the August Prize?”

“I was a little nervous. But I think she was nervous, too. That was nice.”

“Do you think this would have all felt different if it had happened when you were 25 instead of 55?”

“Yes. I would have cared much more what others thought. But now there are so many things going on.”

There was no drink in my hand, and I longed for one, but not for the alcohol. The biting cold outside had given way to the overcrowded heat of the room and I was parched.

Anders asked a few more questions and then said, “Tove has requested that we now give the floor to one of her oldest friends, who will regale us with some blues.”

Chekhov’s gun, in this case an acoustic guitar, was pulled from its resting place by a middle-aged Swedish man who would almost certainly, if given the chance, talk to me about Bob Dylan. Swedish men over the age of 50 loved talking about Bob Dylan so much that they had given him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

“People often ask me why I like the blues when they’re so sad,” the man said in Swedish into the mic. “All that minor key stuff, all those sad songs. But for me, the blues are an expression of joy—”

I had to get out of this room. I could have snuck out to the foyer—but I needed a drink. Between me and the drinks were ten people and a row of desks, which I would have to pass directly in front of the singer in order to get around.

Just then, I felt a hand on my arm, and saw that it belonged to my editor, Pernilla.

“I’m so glad you made it!” she said. “Do you want something to drink?”

“Please!”

“Do you want—” she paused, as people often did after reading my book, not sure whether I was sober.

“A beer would be lovely.”

She expertly navigated the throng, reached over the desk, and grabbed me one.

“Do you like the blues?”

I had trouble articulating, in Swedish, my feelings regarding a white Swedish man explaining the blues.

“No.”

“Let’s go to the other room,” she said.

Pernilla led me to the foyer, where there were two couches and a coffee table, and where a woman was rocking a baby.

“I was just leaving,” she said, getting up.

“What a handsome little guy,” I said, in Swedish, motioning to her big-cheeked one-year-old. 

The lady gave me a sideways look.

Talking about babies, like greeting dogs, was tricky in a second language. In directly translating the English, I had probably accidentally said something with the feel of “The child has good legs.” We’d had a similar problem finding a Swedish title for my book, which in English was called Such Good Work, and which directly translated to Swedish would’ve had the feel of You Have Labored Well.

“Congratulations,” I said to Pernilla. “It must be thrilling for you to have your book be nominated.”

“Well it’s not my book, of course, it’s Tove’s. But it has been so exciting. I read it when it first came in, and I’ve been with it ever since.”

“From the slush?” In Sweden, you didn’t need an agent—you just sent your book to the publisher and hoped for the best. “How exciting.”

“But you should meet Tove,” she said, spotting the author walking into the room.

She motioned Tove over and said, “This is Johannes. He’s another debut writer we just published.”

“Oh yes, of course, you wrote the essays.”

“Actually, no—that was someone else,” I said. I knew who she was thinking of. A white, dark-haired Swedish guy, who looked not unlike me and had just put out a collection. I didn’t begrudge her for it. “I have a novel as well.”

“Oh, yes, okay.”

“I’ll get you a copy,” Pernilla said and retreated to the other room.

“You were in a creative writing program when you sold the book, right?” I said.

Tove nodded.

“May I ask what it’s like to be in a creative writing program in Sweden?”

“It was a good program,” she said, as Pernilla returned and handed her my book. “I learned quite a bit. If I were to change one thing—”

“The great author!” a woman said, bursting into the frame. She was 50-something, with short dark hair, a nose ring, and a northern accent that, to me, sounded almost Finnish.

“This is Johannes,” Tove said. “He’s an American author who’s just put out a book.” She handed the book to her friend.

Her friend shook my hand and looked like she was about to ask me what my book was about, which I couldn’t even explain in English, so I pre-empted her to ask how she knew Tove.

“In 1991, we were both taking classes at”—she said a word I didn’t understand—“and I saw her across the room and we just fell in love. We would drink dangerous amounts of wine and talk shit about men and drive skidding on the ice with ashtrays overflowing—and it’s been the same for 27 years now. Except for the smoking—now I snus,” she said, referring to the popular little Swedish little tobacco pouches you tucked under your lip.

Someone came over and pulled Tove and Pernilla away for a photograph.

“We never had the right timing, she and I,” the woman continued, “because first I had kids and then she had kids, and so on, but we used to play the lottery together. Eventually we stopped because we never won, and I said to her, ‘Well, that settles it—you’ll just have to write a bestseller.’ And here we are.”

“So you should get a cut of the royalties.”

“I believe in the universe. And I am not at all surprised that this is happening. I always knew that she would make it—I always knew you would make it!—but we just never had the right timing. But how can I buy this book?” she said, holding up mine.

“You can get it down the street, at Akedemibokhandeln. Or online. Pretty much anywhere that sells books.”

“But I want to buy it now so that you can sign it.”

I couldn’t very well ask the PR person to come over from the book table during Tove’s party to use her card reader to sell a copy of my book.

“I’ll sign this copy. It’ll be my gift to you. And in return, you can make sure my book becomes a bestseller, too.”

“It’s a deal. I believe in the universe. Here, this is what Tove wrote to me.” She opened up her copy of Tove’s book.

To an eternal friendship, with love.

“Maybe you can write something like that, too?”

“But I just met you.”

“I said something like that.”

“Okay. What’s your name?”

“Emily. Like the English Emily but with an A not the I’s.”

“What?”

Then she said a collection of letters that made it sound like she was trying to guess how her name was spelled.

I wrote:

         To Emily (the English way but with an A not the I’s)—

         To a soon-to-be-eternal friendship

         With like,

         Johannes

She opened it and began to read and I said, “It’s been wonderful talking with you, but I’ve had to pee since I arrived,” and hurried off to find the bathroom.

The bathroom door was at the front of the main room, just to the right of the guitarist, who was now playing “Hoochie Coochie Man.” Oddly, the baby that I had called handsome was now lying in his stroller alone by the bathroom door. I waved to him, and then opened the door to the bathroom.

His mother, who was sitting on the toilet, screamed.

I shut the door, retrieved my coat, and headed back out into the night.