Spill

It starts with a letter. A reader named Hedwig 'Hedda' Langmark, now old and living on Spain's Costa del Sol, writes to the novelist Sigrid Combüchen, a character with the author's own name: the family snapshot from 1930s Lund described in one of her books shows Hedda's own family. The writer had rescued the picture from a junk dealer because it came from her neighbourhood. Their exchange of letters, together with old school yearbooks, weekly magazines and websites, slowly brings the Carlssons into view: three sons and a single daughter. At about twenty, Hedda made hasty choices that steered her away from the life a girl of her class was expected to lead. Now the two women argue over what it all meant, the novelist mourning lost possibilities, Hedda insisting her life was no waste.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

449 pages in the original

Genres

Family (assigned by AI)

Set in

Sweden, Spain, 1930s

First published

2010 by Norstedts

Author's age

68 when first published

ISBN

9789113029887 (original)

More

Wikidata