Stieg and Me: Memories of My Life with Stieg Larsson
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In this memoir she recalls her relationship with Larsson and contrasts the hysterical, ill-informed, speculative media hoopla that has betrayed the leftist liberal political, cultural and social ideas that they shared and that inspired his fiction. For devotees of the novels she also confirmed elements in the book that are autobiographical and teases us with hints about the mysterious fourth volume. (Iain Finlayson THE TIMES - 23 JULY 2011 )
Gabrielsson's deep love for Larsson rises from these pages with great power and her account of her ongoing battle with Larsson's father and brother over his estate is gripping... love for Larsson is the main force behind the writing. (Sophie Hannah SUNDAY EXPRESS - 24 July 2011 )
After much preliminary speculation over its contents, Eva Gabrielsson's fascinating and quirky memoir about her life with the most successful Scandinavian crime writer of all time turns out to be a truly fascinating read. (CRIME TIME )
It is hard not to feel sorry for Eva Gabrielsson. (SUNDAY TIMES - 10 July 2011 )
...a short, highly emotional tour through a widow's grief and dispossession. (David Carr New York Times )
Stieg Larsson's widow tells the story of their 30-year romance, of Stieg's upbringing and early years, and how this shaped the morals and personality of the Swedish journalist and author. (TNT - 11 July 2011 )
Essential reading for the bigger picture of this bestselling author and campaigner. (Sile McArdle Sunday Independent Ireland )
Gabrielsson's deep love for Larsson rises from these pages with great power and her account of her ongoing battle with Larsson's father and brother over his estate is gripping... love for Larsson is the main force behind the writing. (Sophie Hannah SUNDAY EXPRESS - 24 July 2011 )
After much preliminary speculation over its contents, Eva Gabrielsson's fascinating and quirky memoir about her life with the most successful Scandinavian crime writer of all time turns out to be a truly fascinating read. (CRIME TIME )
It is hard not to feel sorry for Eva Gabrielsson. (SUNDAY TIMES - 10 July 2011 )
...a short, highly emotional tour through a widow's grief and dispossession. (David Carr New York Times )
Stieg Larsson's widow tells the story of their 30-year romance, of Stieg's upbringing and early years, and how this shaped the morals and personality of the Swedish journalist and author. (TNT - 11 July 2011 )
Essential reading for the bigger picture of this bestselling author and campaigner. (Sile McArdle Sunday Independent Ireland )
Book Description
The poignant account of the thirty-year life shared together by Stieg Larsson and Eva Gabrielsson.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
(3.5 stars) If ever there were anyone who had an excuse to grind axes, it would be Eva Gabrielsson, who lived with author Stieg Larsson for thirty-two years but who, through a loophole in Swedish law, inherited nothing upon his death at age fifty in 2004, his entire estate going, by law, to his estranged brother and father. Gabrielsson has often said that she is not personally interested in the enormous sums which his Millenium Trilogy sales have generated. As dedicated to social causes as Larsson was, she is fighting, instead, for control of his literary legacy, especially alarmed because, she fears, that if present trends continue, she may soon see his name on beer cans.
Remarkably objective and straightforward for most of the book, Gabrielsson describes Larsson's early life in the remote north of Sweden, where he lived with his grandparents from infancy until the age of nine, absorbing his grandfather's stories and pacifist political views. After his grandfather's death, Larsson rejoined his mother and father in the city, six hundred miles to the south. Though Larsson felt comfortable with his mother, he never formed a strong bond with his father or younger brother, according to Gabrielsson. In 1972, just after his eighteenth birthday, he met nineteen-year-old Eva at a rally in support of the Front National de Liberation in Vietnam (FLN), a Trotskyite group. Soul-mates, she says, they simultaneously supported communist causes and a strict, old-fashioned morality, believing in justice but also in vengeance. Later, when Larsson began to write for a series of newspapers, he was a crusader for human rights for those suffering from discrimination, and often received death threats.
Gabrielsson does not really tell much about their lives together, except within the context of their shared beliefs, and neither of them truly comes alive here. Gabrielsson's descriptions of her grief at his sudden death certainly ring true, but much of this grief was also connected to their devotion to causes, some of which began to languish after his death. She is passionate about what she regards as the complete violation of Larsson's wishes after his death--that the profits from his books should serve causes in which he so strongly believed, not personal greed. Despite her obvious grief, Gabrielsson still comes across as rather cold, single-minded, and uncompromising about all aspects of Larsson's legacy. Though his father and brother have been incredibly insensitive, to say the least, she seems equally tunnel-visioned, equally close-minded. And as the wrangling between Gabrielsson and the Larssons plays out, I cannot not help feeling that parts of this saga have been left out.
Does Gabrielsson, in fact, really hold the "ace" in this high-stakes game of Larsson's legacy--the mysterious computer with an outline and part of a fourth book? That is never clear. She says the computer was returned to Expo magazine the day Larsson died. Expo denies that they have it. She has also said that she is determined that the fourth book, if it exists, not be completed--she wants no ghost writers involved. Gabrielsson's own co-writer, Marie-Francoise Colombani says in the Foreword, however, that if Eva's request for legal control of Larsson's literary estate is granted, that "she will clear up the mystery shrouding the fourth novel," then adds, "Let [her enemies] tremble...Eva, tempered in the fires of adversity, is poised to write the final words of their fate and lead a dance on their graves." You be the judge. Mary Whipple
Remarkably objective and straightforward for most of the book, Gabrielsson describes Larsson's early life in the remote north of Sweden, where he lived with his grandparents from infancy until the age of nine, absorbing his grandfather's stories and pacifist political views. After his grandfather's death, Larsson rejoined his mother and father in the city, six hundred miles to the south. Though Larsson felt comfortable with his mother, he never formed a strong bond with his father or younger brother, according to Gabrielsson. In 1972, just after his eighteenth birthday, he met nineteen-year-old Eva at a rally in support of the Front National de Liberation in Vietnam (FLN), a Trotskyite group. Soul-mates, she says, they simultaneously supported communist causes and a strict, old-fashioned morality, believing in justice but also in vengeance. Later, when Larsson began to write for a series of newspapers, he was a crusader for human rights for those suffering from discrimination, and often received death threats.
Gabrielsson does not really tell much about their lives together, except within the context of their shared beliefs, and neither of them truly comes alive here. Gabrielsson's descriptions of her grief at his sudden death certainly ring true, but much of this grief was also connected to their devotion to causes, some of which began to languish after his death. She is passionate about what she regards as the complete violation of Larsson's wishes after his death--that the profits from his books should serve causes in which he so strongly believed, not personal greed. Despite her obvious grief, Gabrielsson still comes across as rather cold, single-minded, and uncompromising about all aspects of Larsson's legacy. Though his father and brother have been incredibly insensitive, to say the least, she seems equally tunnel-visioned, equally close-minded. And as the wrangling between Gabrielsson and the Larssons plays out, I cannot not help feeling that parts of this saga have been left out.
Does Gabrielsson, in fact, really hold the "ace" in this high-stakes game of Larsson's legacy--the mysterious computer with an outline and part of a fourth book? That is never clear. She says the computer was returned to Expo magazine the day Larsson died. Expo denies that they have it. She has also said that she is determined that the fourth book, if it exists, not be completed--she wants no ghost writers involved. Gabrielsson's own co-writer, Marie-Francoise Colombani says in the Foreword, however, that if Eva's request for legal control of Larsson's literary estate is granted, that "she will clear up the mystery shrouding the fourth novel," then adds, "Let [her enemies] tremble...Eva, tempered in the fires of adversity, is poised to write the final words of their fate and lead a dance on their graves." You be the judge. Mary Whipple
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Considering the hype I heard this book provoked when published in France, I was rather disappointed by its content. Sketchy and unstructured, the book consists more of random musings back on Eva's life with Stieg than 'biographical' material, so funny enough, (or calculated result?) you are not going to learn here anything you did not know already if you are, like me, interested in the man behind the Trilogy, and if you have read lots of articles about him.
Yes Eva tells us about her legitimate grievances against the Larsson family, but as she somehow comes across as rather cold and unsympathetic, I was left wondering if they did not have an unmentionned reason for not being more generous towards her? The other side of the story would certainly gains to be heard...
When I read somewhere before that she might have helped Stieg in writing the Trilogy, that is at least one point elucidated: even with a ghost-writer, the writing here is so flat and dull that no, Eva definitely did not 'write' any of Millennium...And what will happen to the poor 4th volume of which only 200 pages were completed by Stieg, god knows...But if it ever is published it will only be a caricature of what he would have done. Called 'the revenge of God' it is the never-to-be-book I miss most...
It is gruellingly sad to think of all the immensely good work in the world Stieg Larsson would have done with his new-found wealth if he had lived, because Eva makes clear that he was a man and a journalist of total integrity and strong ethics, and with him, the world has lost so much more potential for good...
Yes Eva tells us about her legitimate grievances against the Larsson family, but as she somehow comes across as rather cold and unsympathetic, I was left wondering if they did not have an unmentionned reason for not being more generous towards her? The other side of the story would certainly gains to be heard...
When I read somewhere before that she might have helped Stieg in writing the Trilogy, that is at least one point elucidated: even with a ghost-writer, the writing here is so flat and dull that no, Eva definitely did not 'write' any of Millennium...And what will happen to the poor 4th volume of which only 200 pages were completed by Stieg, god knows...But if it ever is published it will only be a caricature of what he would have done. Called 'the revenge of God' it is the never-to-be-book I miss most...
It is gruellingly sad to think of all the immensely good work in the world Stieg Larsson would have done with his new-found wealth if he had lived, because Eva makes clear that he was a man and a journalist of total integrity and strong ethics, and with him, the world has lost so much more potential for good...
Format:Paperback
Like everyone else, I loved the Millenium books - obviously they were special in a way that couldn't be explained by mere good writing. It turns out that they were not just a product of targeted novel research but also resulted from the experiences Stieg gained in an extraordinarily interesting life spent as a working journalist, mostly struggling against strong mainstream currents. Eva's book allows us to peek behind the scenes of the Millenium novels, where Stieg has already in his own words voiced his personal disgust with the 'old boy's club' attitude of a global elite (including the Swedish authorities). After all, the Millenium plot denounces the widespread greediness of those in power with right-wing political views, who tolerate white-collar crime and tacitly ignore (or even actively encourage) abuse of minorities and women. In his protagonist Lisbeth Salander, Stieg championed a woman who is a victim of abuse, who has been systematically deprived of her civil rights and who has no particular talent to make herself heard; in other words, she isn't `sexy' or `cute'. She's intelligent but without a voice of her own or much hope that anyone would ever want to believe her. Stieg describes Lisbeth as appearing cold, defensive, hardfaced, ragged, abrasive - with trust issues. How this scruffy, but resourceful anti-heroine manages to turn the tables on her powerful adversaries is a story that has had millions of people spellbound around the globe.
Particularly in view of the Millenium books's subject matter it is perhaps especially ironic that Eva Gabrielsson (who shared Stieg's life for 30 years) finds herself in a situation after his sudden and tragic death, where her voice counts for nothing and where she has (under Swedish law) no legal rights at all. Since she had no kids and didn't formally marry Stieg, her 30 years with him under one roof not only don't count but didn't officially exist.
(digest this)
Eva also appears to have no particular interest or talent to `sell herself' and doesn't seem very `cuddly and cute' (sounds familiar?).
Her real-life experiences with a total lack of legislation for childless de facto couples in Sweden only underline Stieg's own research into Swedish politics, which is wearing a seemingly progressive veneer that masks ongoing injustice towards women and continued `old boy's club' attitudes everywhere you care to look.
Yes, it reads a little raggedly, but what a story! If you liked Lisbeth, here is where she grew up. Definitely recommended.
Particularly in view of the Millenium books's subject matter it is perhaps especially ironic that Eva Gabrielsson (who shared Stieg's life for 30 years) finds herself in a situation after his sudden and tragic death, where her voice counts for nothing and where she has (under Swedish law) no legal rights at all. Since she had no kids and didn't formally marry Stieg, her 30 years with him under one roof not only don't count but didn't officially exist.
(digest this)
Eva also appears to have no particular interest or talent to `sell herself' and doesn't seem very `cuddly and cute' (sounds familiar?).
Her real-life experiences with a total lack of legislation for childless de facto couples in Sweden only underline Stieg's own research into Swedish politics, which is wearing a seemingly progressive veneer that masks ongoing injustice towards women and continued `old boy's club' attitudes everywhere you care to look.
Yes, it reads a little raggedly, but what a story! If you liked Lisbeth, here is where she grew up. Definitely recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
A heartbreaking companion piece to a great literary achivement.
Eva Gabrielson's STIEG & ME had me in tears.
What is a small miracle is that Gabrielson found the emotional strength to write this book. Read more
What is a small miracle is that Gabrielson found the emotional strength to write this book. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Dahlia89
Interesting book
After reading all the Millenium Trilogy, this was a great book...now I want to go back and re-read the books. I recommend it for Stieg Larsson fans.
Published 5 months ago by Soirse
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