New Swedish Books, Spring 2018 1
New Swedish Books 68 Linnea Dahlgren (b. 1991) Th
e Day You Ruined Everything Publisher Vox by Opal www.voxbyopal.se Rights Opal anja@opal.se Linnea Dahlgren lives in Malmö, works in a library, and studied at Lund’s creative writing school. The Day You Ruined Everything is her debut. The Day You Ruined Everything Linnea Dahlgren’s debut The Day You Ruined Everything portrays the symbiotic friendship of Melanie and Kassandra. As they start high school their friendship is tested and new friends enter the picture, yet their lives are still in tandem. Then the indescribable happens, Kassandra takes her own life and Melanie struggles to understand. The clearing in the woods that they called their ‘time-nook’, where the girls would lie on their backs fantasising together, becomes a refuge where Melanie attempts to cancel out death and find the strength to go on. A dreamily evocative tone is established, particularly in the sections on coping with grief, setting the mood of the novel. Flashbacks to how the girls’ friendship first arose only to later cool off are delicately depicted. Dahlgren skilfully balances the different layers of grief and how they may be expressed. The new friends Omar and Berit, wearing a princess crown, come to represent the courage to be who you are. They catch Melanie and help her to move on. Dahlgren has a distinct narrative voice and locates that which cuts right through the heart, like a hidden depression finally ending in suicide. But most intensely she focuses on those who are forced to remain. Dahlgren’s perfect pitch for broaching the kind of darkness and pain that swallows you up when the closest of friendships break down makes the story both multifaceted and hopeful in all its gloom. Photo: Pernilla Dahlgren