Family feud over sequel to dead author’s trilogy
A bitter feud has broken out over the release today of the new instalment in Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium series – The Girl
in the Spider’s Web. The book is not even written by Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004, aged 50, before his trilogy was published. Its release has enraged Larsson’s partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who hopes fans will boycott the novel.
IT HAS all the elements of a gripping thriller: secrecy, paranoia, a bitter feud and even a Viking curse. The release today of The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the new instalment in Stieg Larsson’s best-selling Millennium series, is a saga in itself.
The book is not even written by Larsson: he died of a heart attack in 2004, aged 50, before his trilogy was published.
Billed on the jacket as “continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series”, it is the work of David Lagercrantz, best known as the ghostwriter of the Swed- ish footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s autobiography, who has the blessing of Larsson’s family to continue the money-spinning series.
Its release has enraged Larsson’s partner, Eva Gabrielsson, who hopes fans will boycott the novel.
The couple were together for 32 years, but Larsson died without making a will and, under Swedish law, unmarried partners have no right of inheritance. Instead, control of the author’s literary estate passed to Larsson’s father, Erland, and brother, Joakim, with whom he was said to have had a difficult relationship.
Miss Gabrielsson claims to have in her possession a draft of a fourth novel, half-written, on Larsson’s laptop, but has refused to hand it over – hence the family’s decision to endorse a new writer to “keep alive” the trilogy’s characters, the hacker Lisbeth Salander and the journalist Mikael Blomqvist.
Miss Gabrielsson described Lagercrantz as “a totally idiotic choice” and said she hoped her late partner would “send a lightning bolt” to strike the book launch.
Two of Larsson’s childhood friends, in a letter to a Swedish newspaper, likened the project to “grave robbing”.
So bitter is Miss Gabrielsson that she has admitted to laying a Viking curse on those who have made money from his name. “I asked that people would lose their careers. I asked that they would become sick,” she said.
The Millennium series, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which was published in Sweden in 2005 as Män som Hatar Kvinnor, or Men who Hate Women, has sold 80 million copies worldwide. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was also made into successful films in both Sweden and in Hollywood. Such is the controversy surrounding The Girl in the Spider’s Web that it has been shrouded in secrecy. Lagercrantz’s first meeting with the publishers was conducted in a basement, at their insistence, so there could be no chance of them being overheard. The book was referred to by a codename.
The book was written on a computer with no internet connection and research had to be conducted on a separate device. Susanna Romanus, a manager at the Swedish publishing house Norstedts, said: “We were worried that a hacker might try to get hold of the manuscript and leak it online.”
Only two people at the firm were allowed to see the drafts. Ms Romanus locked the finished manuscript in a safe and hid the key in different places around the building each night.
Translators were sent watermarked manuscripts by courier rather than by email.
No advance copies have been sent out for review but a teaser excerpt has been released. It is known the book involves the US National Security Agency and has a Silicon Valley setting.
The publishers boasted of erecting a “ring of steel” around the book ahead of its release, but their plans were ruined when a newsagent in Stockholm railway station took delivery of a batch and mistakenly put it on sale a day early. It was spotted by a local newspaper reporter, who bought a copy and scooped the world by printing the first review.
Fans are divided. On the author’s official Facebook page, some called the new book “shameful” but others said they planned to buy a copy.