‘The Details’ by Ia Genberg (Review – IBP 2024, Number Twelve)

Having narrowly escaped some rather sticky situations in revolutionary-era Kyiv, we’re taking things a little easier on today’s leg of our International Booker Prize longlist travels.  We’re off to Sweden, where we’ll be paying a hospital visit to a woman who’s confined to her bed after coming down with a fever.  As it happens, though, a little bed-rest does wonders for the memory, and we’ve arrived just in time to hear all about her life-story – including accounts of some very special people…

*****
The Details by Ia Genberg
– Wildfire, translated by Kira Josefsson
(review copy courtesy of the publisher)
What’s it all about?
A woman is in hospital with a serious fever, and when, during a spell of feeling better, she reaches for a book, she soon remembers why.  It’s a link to another period of illness, and to a woman who cared for her long ago:

I spent more than a week at the hospital, but by the time Johanna gave me this novel, I was curled up in our bedroom in Hägersten, where they had taken me by ambulance via a liver biopsy in Uppsala.  I don’t remember the results – there’s not much I can recall from that summer – but I’ll never forget our apartment, the book, or her.
p.2 (Wildfire, 2024)

Opening the book acts as a kind of ‘madeleine moment’, and memories of an important relationship come flooding back.

However, this is just the first of four people the woman thinks about while lying in her hospital bed.  As well as Johanna, there’s Nikki, a close friend from her uni days, and Alejandro, a former lover who left an indelible mark.  Finally, she turns her attention to Birgitte, perhaps the most important of the four, and the one who holds the key to why she’s wallowing in her memories.

It’s not a secret that 2024 appears to be the year of autofiction for the IBP, but The Details does it better than most.  You get the sense that these recollections are drawn from the writer’s own past, but it’s done so as not to draw attention to the fact.  Instead, Genberg treats us to an enjoyable stroll down memory lane, in the company of a woman forced to disengage from everyday life and taking the opportunity to reflect on what has brought her this far.

The book is divided into four sections, each focusing on a particular friendship or relationship.  We meet Johanna, the calm, organised journalist, a woman with the surprising ability to switch her emotions on or off at will, and then skip back a few years to when the narrator lived with Nikki, the all-or-nothing friend, whose close ties are always likely to rupture spectacularly.  The memories of Alejandro, a foreign dancer in a band, are slightly different, suffused with love and lust, with their brief affair leaving a lasting impression.

The main topic of The Details could well be that of paying homage to the freedom of youth.  Throughout the first three sections there are endless nights spent drinking, talking over takeaway pizza and doing dumb stuff that you still remember decades on.  This was an aspect of the book I really enjoyed, the idea of times and events that in the grand scheme of things were fleeting and unimportant, yet are still seared across your memory decades on – all those little details…

A theme that gradually creeps up on you as the book progresses is one of mental illness.  There are several casual, flippant mentions in the earlier sections, describing how it was glossed over, ignored, during the woman’s youth:

Words like psychology, trauma and processing weren’t part of most people’s vocabulary, and when she crawled into her older sister’s bed at the wolf hour while pretending to mumble ‘father, father’ in her sleep, the sister covered Birgitte’s mouth with her hand until she stopped and opened her eyes. (p.126)

The little seeds planted during the first three sections bear fruit in the last one, where we’re introduced to Birgitte, and learn just how her issues affected the narrator.

There’s a lot to like about Genberg’s work, and Josefsson’s translation, but if I have one criticism, it’s that I’m not convinced it quite hangs together as well as it might.  After the first three sections, I had The Details down as a real contender, but the final section didn’t really tie the disparate strands together successfully enough.  Perhaps that’s more down to my expectations than the writer’s failings, but on finishing the book, I felt it was four loosely-linked sets of recollections rather than a cohesive story, with a lack of a real underpinning theme.

Yet there were times while reading The Details when I was completely lost in the narrator’s memories, and how much you appreciate the book will depend on your own youth.  There was so much here that reminded me of my own halcyon days, with their long drunken nights, close friends who’ve somehow drifted away and adventurous journeys across Europe in a time before the Internet and smartphones.  The narrator is not so much regretting these times as reflecting upon them, days long gone but still affecting her today.  It won’t be for everyone, but if (like me…) you still secretly yearn for a simpler time in your life, The Details may well strike a chord…

Did it deserve to make the shortlist?
Yes, I think so.  This was easily one of the more enjoyable books on the longlist, and there were times when I was fully absorbed in the narrator’s tales of love, loss and days in the sun.  I’m not convinced there’s enough here to win, but it’s certainly worthy of a place in my top six.

Why did it make the shortlist?
Well, for the reasons above, obviously.  Also, as mentioned in my review of Lost on Me, with so many longlisted titles dripping in autofiction, there was a bit of a battle within a battle, and I suspect Genberg’s work came out on top against Raimo’s book and Undiscovered for one of the final shortlist spots.

*****
Alas, visiting hours are over, so it’s time to let our new friend get some sleep while we embark on the final leg of this year’s journey.  This time we’re heading to Russia, via Albania, where we’ll be listening in on a rather important phone call.  However, as it turns out, there’s more than one side to the story, and a little confusion as to just what was said – more on that next time 😉