Andromeda
“I understood that he was testing me, and that he was doing so because for some reason he had decided to believe in me.”
JANUARY 7, 2024
One day Gunnar asked me to sit in on a discussion with Amelie Stjärne, one of the authors he had discovered in the eighties. Back then she was young and radical, she wrote bold, revealing novels that were still read and loved by young women. Now she was almost sixty and had aged gently and with dignity, as wealthy people do, with beautifully cut hair and soft lines around her eyes.
“What a pretty blouse,” Gunnar said when she had taken off her coat.
It really was a pretty blouse, some kind of Oriental pattern in muted colors, and he had the ability to deliver compliments as if he were making an obvious comment, something that no one could possibly take offense at.
Amelie smiled in delight. “He always flatters me, that’s why I’ve stayed with him,” she said, winking at me.
I smiled back at her as if we were in cahoots, two women who both appreciated Gunnar’s unassuming charm.
After making small talk about the coming summer and Amelie’s house on the island of Gotland, Gunnar moved on to the half-finished manuscript she had submitted to him. It was like watching a dance, with Gunnar steering her so skillfully through what was actually quite harsh criticism that in the end it seemed as if she was the one who had come up with a plethora of fresh ideas during the conversation, she who had seen the fundamental changes she needed to make, she who had worked out how to revise and make cuts. He was present and attentive, and he had the ability to make her feel both seen and understood to such an extent that her cheeks were glowing. He gave her exactly the kind of attention that she and her manuscript required.
She left feeling overwhelmed and happy, knowing that she was a great author, that she had something within her that, with a little refinement, could become a great and significant novel.
Gunnar had created that novel, I thought. I pictured him sitting down with her flaky draft, asking himself what was the very best book that could be made of it, intuitively seeing the changes that were necessary to achieve that goal. And when I saw the sketches for the cover I thought that the author’s name really ought to be Gunnar Abrahamsson, not Amelie Stjärne.
✺
At the end of May I finally got to attend a party.
All day there was an atmosphere of carefree excitement in the office, a sense of anticipation which meant that no one could really concentrate on their work. The catering company staff were around all day, carrying tables up to the terrace, wheeling clothes racks into the cloakroom, and bringing in case after case of wine. As five o’clock approached the huge trays of food arrived, an early summer buffet provided by one of Stockholm’s finest restaurants, salmon and crudités, small but beautifully decorated quiches, sauces and dips, tempting salads, freshly baked bread in great big baskets, and butter in little bowls. Then the teenage sons and daughters of Rydéns’s employees showed up, ready to staff the cloakroom and help out during the evening. I changed into a new dress, new shoes, new earrings, and the guests began to arrive.
I felt intoxicated by an intense lust for life and by insights I couldn’t put into words, they were utopian, they gave me a taste of how magnificent and beautiful life could be, and I wanted literature to be like that too, as impactful as life itself when it was at its most powerful, and I wanted to be the one who made it that way.
The whole thing was wonderful. It was exactly the way I wanted life to be, and I got to be the person I wanted to be: the hostess of a fantastic party, receiving the guests and chatting with them, making sure they had a glass of wine then ushering them into the festivities.
I felt proud and important. And I felt even more important later, when Gunnar had extricated himself from a long, drawn-out conversation and we stood together, talking to the authors we had worked with. Amelie Stjärne laughed at something he said, and Vilma Isaksson, who had written the first manuscript I’d recommended for publication, was noticeably nervous but gradually relaxed. The four of us were by the bar, and Gunnar said, “You see these coasters? They’ve been used ever since the very first parties at Rydéns. One was actually found among Strindberg’s effects,” and Vilma said, “But surely he wasn’t published by Rydéns?” and Gunnar smiled and said, “No, but we’ve always thrown the best parties.” And she laughed, both at the anecdote and because she was a part of something so desirable, and I laughed too for the same reasons, as the sun slowly dipped below the rooftops. The desserts were melting, the kids checking coats had managed to get tipsy, the world seemed to be enchanted, sparkling, wonderful.
Afterward I realized that all I had cared about that evening was Gunnar. Being close to him, standing beside him, observing how he spoke to the authors and made sure that they were enjoying themselves, that they felt part of something bigger.
I barely paid any attention to my colleagues. What did Andrea and Peter do all night? I exchanged a few words with Sally at the buffet, but that was mainly because I didn’t have anyone else to talk to at the time, and in the lunchroom the following day, when everyone, slightly hungover, started cheerfully comparing notes on who they had spoken to—a literary critic from a major newspaper, the new girl in the children’s department, a former publisher from Rydéns who had moved into advertising— I realized that I had no interest in what they were saying. The only person I had wanted to talk to was Gunnar.
✺
When autumn came that year it was wonderful, mild days with the air shimmering like mother-of-pearl and twilights that slowly wrapped Stockholm in a warm darkness. I bought new clothes, because for the first time I had a little money to play with, clothes that were appropriate for working in an office, and I felt like an adult with my monthly salary and my daily routines and the occasional lunch in the city. I loved the corridors at Rydéns, the dark wood and the bespoke tiles and mosaics, the beautiful ceiling lamps with their pleasant glow reflected in the brass.
I found the situation quite stressful. Were the two of us going to drink an entire bottle of wine? That would take ages. How was I going to converse with him for such a long time without him realizing that I was boring, without my saying something dumb?
The building was one of the highlights of Swedish 1960s architecture, so well-thought-out and executed that we often had a group of trainee architects on a study visit. Tourists would take photographs as they passed by. I enjoyed carrying a pile of papers from the printer to my desk, fetching a cup of coffee and drinking it by one of the large windows overlooking the busy street. And most of all I loved my job, the manuscripts I worked on. I loved being involved in creating literature, and it seemed as if the city sang to me while I walked home in the evenings, sang with electricity and sirens, winked seductively with traffic lights and neon signs. The feeling rubbed off on the manuscripts I read, I felt intoxicated by an intense lust for life and by insights I couldn’t put into words, they were utopian, they gave me a taste of how magnificent and beautiful life could be, and I wanted literature to be like that too, as impactful as life itself when it was at its most powerful, and I wanted to be the one who made it that way.
“Do you have any plans for this afternoon? Or early evening?” Gunnar asked me one Thursday in October. As usual I didn’t, apart from working, and just after three he appeared by my desk and said quietly that it was time for us to leave.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see.”
I picked up my coat and my purse and accompanied him out of the building, along Norrlandsgatan and through Kungsträdgården. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, the contours of the city had an unreal sharpness, the gulls flying over the water were brilliant white.
“This air is something else,” Gunnar said, narrowing his eyes against the bright sunlight. “It’s funny, this is how you imagine the autumn, and yet it’s hardly ever exactly like this. I’d be surprised if it happens more than once a year.”
When we reached the Royal Opera House, he strode over to the bistro known as Bakfickan and held the door open for me. “Might not be the best place on a day like this,” he said, nodding toward a small, dimly lit foyer, “but come on in.”
The restaurant consisted of a single room that was almost empty. The lunchtime diners had left, and those who wanted a drink after work wouldn’t be here for at least an hour. The sun couldn’t find its way in through the windows and the light inside was warm and subdued, creating a relaxed atmosphere. A waiter was polishing glasses and chatting with a chef. They both smiled when we walked in.
“How’s it going?” the waiter asked.
“Can’t complain,” Gunnar replied.
“What can I get you today?”
“I believe you have a new Chablis?” Gunnar took off his coat and hung it on a hook on the wall, then sat down at the table farthest in. I took the seat opposite him as the waiter appeared with a bottle and two glasses. After the little ritual when Gunnar tasted the wine and said, “Excellent,” and the waiter poured us each a glass then left the bottle in an ice bucket on the table, silence fell. I found the situation quite stressful. Were the two of us going to drink an entire bottle of wine? That would take ages. How was I going to converse with him for such a long time without him realizing that I was boring, without my saying something dumb? Or maybe someone else was joining us? That would make things easier, yet there was something strangely flattering about the idea that it was just Gunnar and me, that for some reason he had chosen my company.
He raised his glass to me in a toast before we tried the wine.
“Not bad at all,” he said.
“It’s delicious,” I replied.
That was an understatement, it was the best wine I’d ever drunk.
He smiled and immediately looked more relaxed than he usually did in the office, when he often came across as very serious and a little cantankerous.
We had sent a book to the printer the previous day, and he told me a story about when he first started at Rydéns and almost missed a spelling error in the title on a front cover, then he moved on to another anecdote about the book’s author and his habit of taking his dog along to every meeting and personal appearance. I don’t know where the time went. Afterward I thought about the meeting with Amelie Stjärne, the way Gunnar led her through the conversation as if it were a dance. He did the same with me over the wine, occasionally asking discreet questions that made me talk about myself honestly and candidly. Several times he laughed at something I said. It felt as if the universe contracted around us and we were its innermost core, a bubble of unexpected intimacy and slight intoxication that was a lovely place to be.
He often gave me a task that I would silently protest, thinking I couldn’t do it, but then I would execute it nervously and conscientiously, because I couldn’t bear to disappoint him, and he would say, “Well done,” and I would drink in his praise.
Suddenly the bottle was empty and twilight was beginning to fall outside.
I was almost embarrassed at having talked so much, at having felt close to him so quickly, and our leave-taking was a little awkward. He was obviously in a hurry but didn’t want to rush our goodbyes. When we parted he set off briskly along Fredsgatan.
It wasn’t until I was walking through the Old Town that I realized I hadn’t thanked him for the wine. I sent a text, possibly a bit warmer than if I hadn’t been tipsy: “Forgot to say thank you for the wine. Thank you! I really enjoyed myself.”
His reply came in less than a minute: “I enjoyed myself too.” I looked at the brief message, looked at it over and over again during the course of the evening as I wandered around at home with another glass of wine in my hand because it was still early and I was restless, excited. He had enjoyed himself too.
It was clear right from the start that Gunnar and I worked well together. We could be open with each other in a way that meant there was no friction between us. The differences of opinion that did arise were usually fruitful, and never turned into a symbolic power struggle. He often gave me a task that I would silently protest, thinking I couldn’t do it, but then I would execute it nervously and conscientiously, because I couldn’t bear to disappoint him, and he would say, “Well done,” and I would drink in his praise. I understood that he was testing me, and that he was doing so because for some reason he had decided to believe in me.
During the autumn he allowed me to edit the next book in the Andromeda imprint, and we spent many hours going over the manuscript together. I was convinced that it could be improved if we got rid of the irritating hesitation that I felt pervaded the text. He understood what I meant, and the two of us came up with a number of suggested changes. I was tasked with going through these suggestions with Jesper Ask, the author, whose debut novel had attracted widespread acclaim a few years earlier.
When Jesper and I were sitting opposite each other at a big table in one of the conference rooms I thought about how Gunnar handled his authors, how he managed to make every criticism constructive, how he always made the writers think that the ideas he presented were their own, how he filled them with trust and self-confidence. And eventually I had gotten Jesper exactly where I wanted him: He thought my proposed changes made a lot of sense, he completely agreed about the hesitation in the manuscript, and he assured me that he would go straight home and revise the text. He left the meeting straight-backed and with resolve in his step. From the window of the conference room I watched him make his way among the pedestrians down below, filled with the sense that he was about to produce something great.
It was a few weeks before I received an amended version of his manuscript. At first I thought he had accidentally attached the wrong document. There was hardly any difference from the original version, and almost none of the issues I found problematic had been addressed. “I’m not sure if I’ve received the right version,” I wrote to him, “could you resend the new one?” But as I’d suspected, there was no mistake.
“I don’t know what he’s been doing,” I said wearily to Gunnar.
“It happens sometimes,” he said. “I’m sure Jesper believes he’s made major changes. I don’t think he has the capacity to see what it is that needs changing, even though you’ve explained it to him. There’s a difference between understanding in theory, and actually being able to achieve something when you’re sitting there with the text in front of you.”
“So what do I do now?” I could hear how tired I sounded, like a whining toddler, but I really was disappointed. I’d been looking forward to working on Andromeda, and now my first book was going to be a fiasco.
Gunnar shrugged. “It’s too late to reject the manuscript now, so you’ll have to give it another go if you think it will help. I’m afraid there’s no alternative.”
He went off to one of his frequent lunches. If he wasn’t meeting an author, then it was someone else in the publishing industry or a former colleague, he had a huge network of contacts that I reckoned were just that—contacts, not friends. Regular lunches to keep up with developments in the world of publishing and the cultural climate in general.
I went to the lunchroom, got my sandwich from the refrigerator and took it back to my desk, opened up Jesper’s manuscript again. He had called it Quiet Wind, a somewhat pretentious title for a somewhat pretentious narrative about a father and son, but it suited the tone of the novel, since everything was solemn but fleeting. I slowly scrolled through the pages. It was like a film that needed to be rearranged and shortened, not to mention the many sentences that needed to be changed in order to give the impression that a writer with real authority was telling the story. There is no difference between fiction and reality in that respect: If you appear to be confident enough in what you’re saying, then people will believe you.
As the time approached nine o’clock and I finally began to feel as if the end were in sight, it seemed to me that this was the most satisfying thing I had done in my adult life. I had created clarity, structure, credibility. I had written a novel.
I placed the cursor in the text and dragged it over a section, which I deleted with one decisive click. I scrolled down, highlighted another section, deleted that too. It felt like clearing an overgrown patch in the garden; as soon as the superfluous text was gone, what remained stood out as both clearer and better. I deleted one more paragraph, moved another. When I had a structure I was happy with, I changed the tense throughout the manuscript from past to present. It took a while, but it brought a freshness, a new energy. Then I began to alter all the phrases that annoyed me. I realized I had forgotten about my sandwich. I picked it up and distractedly took a few bites before forgetting about it again. Working on Jesper’s text was like entering a state I remembered from my childhood—being completely absorbed in the imaginary world I had created, not noticing the passage of time. Like a dream with total presence, a perfect intoxication.
“I’m leaving now.” Gunnar had suddenly appeared beside me. He was wearing his coat and carrying his old briefcase.
“Okay.”
Dusk had fallen, the lights of the city were sparkling out there. I felt as if I’d just woken up, my cheeks were burning.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Five thirty. What are you doing?”
“It’s . . . I’m just doing some edits on Jesper’s manuscript,” I mumbled.
“See you tomorrow,” Gunnar said, heading for the elevator. As the time approached nine o’clock and I finally began to feel as if the end were in sight, it seemed to me that this was the most satisfying thing I had done in my adult life. I had created clarity, structure, credibility. I had written a novel.
“I took the liberty of making a few changes,” I wrote to Jesper. “They’re only suggestions—take a look and see what you think.”
The reply arrived at midnight, when I had gone to bed but was still too excited to sleep.
“Brilliant,” he wrote. “Now it’s finished!”
✺
I thought Quiet Wind was the most perfect book I had ever seen. The design of the Andromeda imprint followed a strict template, but all the books had a picture on the cover that distinguished them from one another. We had chosen a slightly blurred photograph that looked a bit like an unsuccessful snap from a family album: a little boy sitting on a man’s knee, both of them looking straight at the camera, yet somehow cut off from the world by the lack of focus. Andromeda’s small logo gleamed on the back, a stylized star constellation in gold.
“I didn’t actually take the name Andromeda from the constellation,” Gunnar said. “It’s from a line by Sappho.”
“Oh?”
“Andromeda has something better to offer. Andromeda is another woman, I think it was written out of jealousy. Occasionally I’ve thought that maybe it’s a bit irreverent to use it to sell books, but then no one knows that’s where the name comes from. And I also wanted to have something better to offer.”
“You could regard it as a tribute,” I suggested.
“I do. You know, it’s hard to find something that deals with life in such a genuine way as Sappho’s poetry, and yet it consists almost entirely of fragments. You get the high and then the low, the superficial and words that really mean something. The complexity of a human being. Sometimes I’ve thought . . .” He paused for a moment. “Sometimes I’ve thought that those disjointed segments are so powerful because that’s the way life is. That’s how you remember it with hindsight, like a series of fragments. Reading Sappho is like reliving your life, in a concentrated form. Being con fronted by what you recall, for better or worse.”
“Maybe it’s just as well that there are only fragments,” I said. “Imagine if there had been a whole lot of complete poems, and she was nowhere near as good as she appears to be? Everything seems interesting when you don’t know much about it. And everyone. It’s so easy to romanticize another person from a distance, only to be disappointed when you actually get to know her. Because the parts were more interesting than the whole.”
The words came spilling out, I hadn’t given them any thought, but he gazed at me for a long time. I recognized that look, it was the one he got when he was beginning to doubt his own conviction. It didn’t happen very often, but I knew I wanted to be the person who evoked that look.
One morning Gunnar met me at my desk and informed me that Quiet Wind had been nominated for a major literary prize. At first I found it difficult to process the idea that something I was a part of could reach such a level. The highest level. Then I noticed the way my colleagues were looking at me, and decided to enjoy the nomination and the attention, just like they would have. They weren’t exactly churlish, and they all congratulated me, but I could tell that there was something about the whole thing that bothered them—presumably me.
Gunnar was clearly happy to see my happiness, but he took it all calmly, almost with a kind of ironic distance, even though the nomination had added another gold star to his tally as well.
“Don’t forget, a nomination isn’t an objective endorsement of a book’s quality,” he said. “Those juries are always as corrupt as hell.”
“To our advantage, in that case,” I replied.
He smiled. “Well done,” he murmured, as if it went against the grain to offer praise, although it was clear from his tone that he meant it.
I knew he didn’t regard Quiet Wind as a particularly good novel, but he was making a real effort not to say something even more acerbic, for my sake, and I think he could see that I understood.
Excerpted from Andromeda by Therese Bohman and translated by Marlaine Delargy, published by Other Press on January 14, 2025. Copyright © Therese Bohman and translated by Marlaine Delargy. Reprinted by permission of Other Press.
✺ Published in “Issue 24: Bodies” of The Dial
