(66) Greed and the good fight

Title: There are things I want you to know about Stieg Larsson and me by Eva Gabrielsson
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
210 pages
Genre: Memoir

Synopsis: Here is the real inside story—not the one about the Stieg Larsson, but rather the love story of a man and a woman whose lives came to be guided by politics and love, coffee and activism, writing and friendship. Only one person in the world knows that story well enough to tell it with authority. Her name is Eva Gabrielsson.

Eva Gabrielsson and Stieg Larsson shared everything, starting when they were both eighteen until his untimely death thirty-two years later at the age of fifty. In There Are Things I Want You to Know about Stieg Larsson and Me, Eva Gabrielsson accepts the daunting challenge of telling the story of their shared life steeped in love and sharpened in the struggle for justice and human rights. She chooses to tell it in short, spare, lyrical chapters, like snapshots, regaling Larsson’s readers with the inside account of how he wrote, why he wrote, who the sources were for Lisbeth and his other characters—graciously answering Stieg Larsson’s readers’ most pressing questions—and at the same time telling us the things we didn’t know we wanted to know—about love and loss, death, betrayal, and the mistreatment of women.

Review: I've been wanting to read this since I first heard about all the hubbub surrounding Stieg's estate. I am not surprised but sickened by the way Stiegs brother and father have acted toward Eva.  She is Stiegs widow and deserves to have inherited his estate, not that she wants it.  She isn't fighting for the money, she is fighting for the rights of his books.  If she gets this she can finish the 4th book which Stieg left half written, and she could make sure that his writings aren't sold or published in places that he would object to.  The idea that his family would treat her so poorly is despicable.

I hope that her activism and tragic story help to change the laws in Sweden to protect the rights of long term domestic partners who don't have children.  Its a wake up call for all domestic partners to make sure that your wishes are known if you are to pass away and that you protect your partner so that they will inherit whatever you wish them to have.

As for the book, well it was a bit disjointed but it did give an interesting peak inside the life of Stieg Larsson and how he came up with some of the things in his books.  I think getting an inside look into his life helps to see where the Millennium trilogy came from.  Eva is an angry woman with good reason.  What happened to her is what Stieg had fought against his entire life.  Men taking advantage of women and making them second class citizens.  His family by not acknowledging her status as his widow is doing exactly what Stieg abhorred.    I hope Eva's Viking avenging prayers come true.

Comments

  1. My Dear Friend, I usually only post comments on your other blog, but I cannot remain silent about your criticism of the situation faced by Ms. Gabrielesson as being attributed to "men abusing women." I hate to bring logic into the fray where "social activists" complain of injury, but the situation you bemoan with Ms. Gabrielesson is actually gender neutral, and especially gender neutral in the case of writers. The same "injustice" if that is how you characterize it would exist if the author was a woman, and the paramour was a man. Also, the same issue exists if Mr. Larssons surviving family members were female instead of male(Unless you are holding to the myth that female relatives would never be so petty as to serve their own interests at the expense of a male companion.) Just sayin'

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  2. You're right but as Stiegs biggest issue was abuse against women and he spent his life fighting it its very sad that his family is choosing to disregard his long term partners claim to his writings. She isn't even asking for the money! Which honestly she should be entitled to.

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