Is it a father's diary discovering his son? A mother's slow journey to know him? Or the story of an eleven-year-old boy with autism who finds—in his own way—how to reach the world?
According to the back cover, this novel is the thriller with which Swedish journalist and writer David Lagercrantz, ten years after the release of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, attempts the ambitious task of continuing Stieg Larsson's now-famous saga. Larsson died before completing it. To step into the footsteps of one of publishing's most spectacular phenomena—80 million copies sold worldwide—was no small risk. Yet Lagercrantz and his What Doesn't Kill You (Marsilio 2015, translated by Laura Cangemi and Katia De Marco) largely pull it off.
Journalist Mikael Blomkvist and hacker Lisbeth Salander; murders, greed, computer networks, international schemes, rogue budgets and nature itself, a past that refuses to stay past, professional ethics, loyalty and betrayal in various forms—all the ingredients Larsson mixed so well return here. But Lagercrantz shows skill in introducing, with delicacy and measured restraint, a carefully drawn supporting character. August is an eleven-year-old boy of rare beauty who does not speak and lives entirely in his own world ("With that fine, concentrated face he emanated an almost regal nobility, or perhaps an aura of detachment, as if he believed it wasn't worth bothering with anything around him").
Among the various forms of disability, autism may be the one most often romanticized in fiction. Writers mythologize the memory, mathematical, or artistic gifts of those who have it. The risk is celebrating genius while forgetting the person beneath—someone who faces real struggle every day. This soothes the conscience but does little to help those living it.
Lagercrantz takes a more honest path. August doesn't speak. He has many repetitive behaviors. His glassy, expressionless gaze frustrates attempts at connection. He exhausts those around him during self-injurious episodes. His father fled to the other side of the ocean. His mother would like to love him, but her inability to manage daily life holds her back; she treats him as a cash machine. His stepfather, violent and frustrated, vents his anger and despair on the boy. These are not new stories—and certainly not the stuff of novels.
Yet as the thriller unfolds, step by step—aided by the stubborn determination of someone who has lived through similar things and can therefore truly recognize himself in them ("What Lisbeth realized as she came back inside and saw August curled in a spasmodic, unnatural position at the table was that the boy reminded her of herself as a child")—the reader begins to truly know August. To see him and hear him.
One scene in particular becomes the emblem of this journey. Frans Bader knows he is hunted. He feels his minutes running out. Yet he, who had always been a terrible father ("It was more or less like going to work as a zookeeper"), before seeking a way out, "took the old green earplugs he had bought at Frankfurt airport from the nightstand and gently placed them in his son's ears. Then he tucked in the blankets, kissed him on the cheek, and stroked his thick, unruly hair. Finally he adjusted the collar of his pajamas and made sure his head was properly supported on the pillow. It made no sense. Frans was afraid and by any logic in a hurry, or at least should have been, yet there he was, attending to his son with endless care, slowing down with each gesture."