Literary Stockholm, part 7: Winter Bay

Read the background for this blog series.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

I remember well when Vinterviken (“Winter bay”) was published in 1993. Mats Wahl was by then a well-known YA writer, particularly for his historical novels Husbonden (“The master”) and Anna-Carolinas krig (“Anna-Carolina's war”), the latter one of several cross-dressing novels that appeared at the same time. Vinterviken was, however, different: focusing on contemporary Swedish society. We were all entranced by it; the reviews were overwhelming, and it won the August Prize for the best children's or YA book of the year. I have written about it, and I taught it on many occasions.

As with the other books I am reading for this challenge, I tried to dig into my memories before re-reading. I remembered the main character and his dilemma, I remembered romance across class and race borders (race issues were not as prominent in Sweden at that time as today), and I remembered crime and violence. What I remembered most of all was the narrative voice. First-person, present tense – it has become so common there days in YA fiction that it is trivial, but it wasn't that usual.

What I had completely forgotten are details that are of overall importance: the fact that the main character attends a drama school and a boxing class, the way he meets the upper-class girl when he saves her little sister from drowning, the conflict with the stepfather (not too original), and a confrontation with a neo-nazi gang.

I had forgotten how unsympathetic, not to say abominable, the main character was. I did remember that he and his friend break and enter, but I did not remember that he also commits other small and big crimes, without slightest regret. I guess I was seduced by the narrative voice, as the reader of course is supposed to be; I fell into identification trap that I have warned so often in my research; I aligned with the underdog ignoring his depravity. But it turned out that I also misremembered the narrative perspective. I must have confused it with a different novel. My sense was that the unreliable narrator “forgets” to mention that he is mixed-race and that it comes as a surprise toward the end, explaining in retrospect some of his behaviour. This is why I reacted so strongly to the cover of my edition, taken from the film adaptation that I also reacted strongly to when it first came: revealing in advance something that the narrator omits. However, this decisive fact is disclosed from start, as John-John is abused and bullied by a gang of neo-nazis, who continue to chase him throughout the plot. And John-John's dreams about his African-American father would not make sense unless we already knew that he was mixed-race. I remembered the dreams, so how these circumstances could be reconciled in my memory I don't understand.

What I remembered correctly though was that being mixed-race is not John-John's dilemma, it's just a part of who he is, and that was what I liked when I first read the novel. His dilemma is class, not race, and in the context the intersection is negligible.

I did not remember that his upper-class girlfriend hits and almost kills his criminal stepfather in self-defence. So she is not precisely an angel either. I did not remember that the stepfather sleeps with his sister, on consent, and the mother does not object. I did not remember that the best friend gets involved with neo-nazis and then asks John-John to help him escape from them.

I did not remember the ending at all so I was kept in suspense about how all these conflicts would be resolved. On re-reading, I wonder why I wasn't disappointed when – skip this if you don't want a spoiler – the enemies conveniently drown in the ice-covered Winter Bay (so the novel starts and ends with drowning). However, while I didn't remember it before reading, I now recall that I was pleased - another spoiler - with the lovers reunited because it was the first Swedish YA novel in many years where the protagonist wasn't killed or committed suicide. I welcomed the happy ending as refreshing. I don't now. I don't find it persuasive.

In short, my memory of the novel was not merely fragmented and distorted, it was next to non-existent. And I have written about it and taught it!

Finally, I had forgotten how badly it was written. Again, I think reviewers, scholars and August jury were enticed by the subject, the voice – and after all, it was perhaps the best book of the year and even decade, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was good.

I am glad I have re-read it and will from now on not misrepresent it in conversations with colleagues. It is also a perfect example of a book that has definitely not survived the trial of time.

Mats Wahl's literary sign is appropriately by Vinterviken in the Western suburb of Stockholm. It is behind bars because of road construction.