I AM BEHIND YOU
John Ajvide Lindqvist
Text Publishing
By VICTOR BILLOT
Underneath the orderly image of modern Sweden, with its sophisticated brands and Nordic social model, incubates a subset of writers whose work dwells in the shadow. In this specific case, a very black and very dense shadow.
To local audiences, John Ajvide Lindqvist may be best known as author of the novel Let the Right One In, adapted for a critically acclaimed 2008 movie. In his latest novel, he continues his approach of crossbreeding everyday life with psychological horror.
His new novel begins with an abrupt fracturing of reality when a group of holidaymakers awake one morning to find themselves in a surreal predicament.
Their camping ground - and apparently the entire world - has vanished overnight. In its place, they find themselves stranded on a possibly infinite grass plain. There is light, but no sun. All they possess is their pets, vehicles and caravans, and a few supplies. Despite being marooned in this un-world, their digital technology indicates they are located in exactly the same place as the night before.
Dislocated in time and place, these strangers - two sets of nuclear families, a retired couple, and a pair of gay farmers in a platonic relationship - are forced together.
Part of the effectiveness of the novel comes as Lindqvist superimposes credible characters with fairly quotidian lives and typical problems on to his secular hell.
Although the environment seems to pose no immediate threat, their inexplicable situation quickly starts to wear at the conventional surfaces of the characters. Naturally, the more conventional the image they present to the world, the greater the secrets and savagery writhing in their depths.
On the other hand, the "outsiders'' in the party are able to maintain some level of equilibrium even in the face of an extreme situation.
Initially though, it appears that hell may be other people, as the group starts to splinter into factions. As time goes on, sinister artefacts emerge from the emptiness. The interior worlds of the characters begin to transmute into physical form as mysterious beings or disturbing events, metaphors for their flawed nature.
The reason for their presence in this chimeric universe is never spelled out, but is suggested to be related to the thought forms of one of the children in the group, come to life. Is this strange dimension some quirk of quantum mechanics, a magical mystery or a simulated reality? The unnatural uniformity of the plain and its wandering denizens suggests a Minecraft game-scape more than Dante's Inferno.
Over the horizon, an approaching darkness brings with it a final horror that bears down relentlessly. They must find a way back to their own world, and this task seems more and more unlikely as the unhappy campers start to crack in what is a genuine skin-crawler of a book.
Victor Billot is editor of The Maritimes, the magazine of the Maritime Union, and a Dunedin poet.
