The Details review: Swedish writer Ia Genberg’s ode to love, literature and memory

The Details, Genberg’s third novel, and her English-language debut, which became an instant bestseller when it was published in 2022, pieces together portraits (‘character studies’) of four people who shape the narrator’s life: Johanna, her ex-girlfriend, who is now a famous TV host; Niki, a mysterious friend who was an ardent reader and a passionate individual; Alejandro, the musician who fathered the narrator’s first child; and Birgitte, who has spent her life suffering from childhood trauma. Her relationships with them — both passionate friendships and romantic entanglements — define the protagonist, a woman whose life has been touched by art and literature. Each little moment spent with them is a tender brushstroke on the canvas of her life — a compendium of small moments. Through her memories and fevered reflections, her remembrance of shared moments and silent understanding, the narrator discovers the essence of her humanity: “That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called ‘self’: traces of the people we rub against.”

Finding herself in the reflections of others

Genberg (56), a former journalist, who debuted as an author in 2012 with the novel Söta fredag (Sweet Friday) and has written two more bestselling books — Sent farväl (Belated farewell, 2013), a novel, and the short story collection Klen tröst & fyra andra berättelser om pengar (Small comfort & four other tales about money, 2018) — since then, weaves a captivating non-linear narrative across the four portraits. She writes about getting lost and searching for yourself in your friends and lovers. She writes about the lives of those who have impacted the narrator in breathtaking prose, prompting us to wonder what we remember about the people who come into our lives.

In the first part, Genberg explores the relationship between art and the individual through the relationship between the narrator and her partner Johanna. The narrator is suffering from a fever when she is struck with a desire to revisit a novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription, a message from her ex-partner, Johanna. Literature was their favourite game, they introduced each other to authors and works. We also get a glimpse of the narrator’s reading habits: “I might have given the impression of being dedicated but I was not, and the bookstack on my night stand always included one or two titles I had abandoned midway through. I preferred books with a pull so strong I couldn’t get out. It was the same with most things in life and as a result my responsibilities were few.” The narrator recalls her time spent with Johanna under the spell of a rising fever. Genberg started writing The Details when she picked out a book from her bookshelf while under the spell of a Covid fever. The narrator is sick, recollecting the memories of these four people who changed her life. The book remind her of Johanna: “To read with a fever is a lottery; the contents of the text will either dissolve or penetrate deep into the cracks accidentally opened by an out-of-control temperature.”

The issue with Johanna was the gifts she bestowed upon the narrator: “It was the kind of generosity that cost her nothing, but which she knew I would never be able to match, and which therefore gave her a secret upper hand.” A couple of years later after the disintegration of this relationship, the narrator realises that the latent violence she felt from Johanna’s gifting might have been a figment of her imagination.

A meditation on the nature of human relationships

Niki was a friend who cohabited with the narrator: ‘Niki touched my heart. Not like the men I sometimes slept with and more rarely fell in love with, but for real, like a soulmate — even though that’s not a word I would have used back then..’. Niki was an ocean of feelings, she lived in filth, and love came easy to her. Books were among her most prized possessions. The narrator remembers Niki years after she exited the narrator’s life. She left behind her copy of The Marsh King’s Daughter. Years later, the narrator still cannot let anyone borrow the book. As for Alejandro, he became the father of the narrator’s first child; the chapter on him is as much about the narrator’s friend, Sally: “Early on in our friendship we’d explored the possibility that we were in love, but those feelings had soon subsided and made space for something much more enduring, a multi-layer conversation that went round and round, a true love without claim to ownership..”.

This part explores the patterns in both women’s romantic relationships. Sally hated “getting stuck” with a lover while the narrator preferred the attachment that came with lovers. Although Alejandro’s time in the narrator’s life was brief, its influence lingered. Every relationship that she got into was measured against Alejandro — a habit the narrator knew was irrational and unjust. In the end, the narrator reflects on her mother, Birgitte, who lived with crippling anxiety. Life was impossible to manage for her. She suffered from childhood trauma. She found solace in multiple rituals and religions which might have been incompatible with one another but that did not bother Birgitte. In the narrator’s portrait of her, one can sense an outpouring of love between the mother and daughter. Birgitte has already died when this part is written, and the chapter is steeped in both grief and admiration, in equal parts.

Can a loved one truly ever leave us? Genberg explores the remains of friendships and romantic relationships and how they alter one’s life. The Details is a book where nothing happens, but the narrator engages us with her descriptions of a rich cast of characters; Josefsson’s translation is flawless, and flows effortlessly. Genberg’s narrative technique might remind the reader of Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy — both writers provide a lesson in crafting unforgettable characters. In the end, the reader is left with an understanding of what it means to be human. This is a novel about self-discovery, literature, and love — lost and found. And a meditation on the nature of human relationships and the workings of memory.