“I’ve had more than my share of magic in life, most often in the encounter with others. There is something there, and only there. I can’t be more specific than that, I can only say that if we’re searching we should look for each other, that a pair of eyes are another’s sideways colon into something, or out of something.”
Would I recognize the me that has never crossed paths with you?
Comprising of four short stories, each starring one impactful person from the unnamed narrator’s past, The Details fearlessly traverses the simultaneously alluring and dangerous landscapes of memory and human connection. Friends, failures, lovers, mothers – one after another, images of bygone times flood in when, while very ill, the narrator opens her copy of The New York Trilogy to an inscription from an ex-lover. Through one-breath paragraphs and sentences bubbling with momentum, memories begin to unfold at a fevered pace: a once-lover, now famous TV host, a housemate who has long since disappeared, a turbulent, failed love affair, and an image of a fragile, distant mother. This illness reminds the narrator of a different illness, long ago. This disappointment reminds her of a different disappointment, this joy of a different joy. As Swedish author Ia Genberg draws confident, overlapping lines through the protagonist’s life, it is impossible to remain a mere spectator to her stream of consciousness; in fact, you must dive in yourself.
“As far as the dead are concerned, chronology has no import and all that matters are the details”, the narrator proclaims in the final story, but in the time-bound world of the living, the state of affairs may not be much different after all. Genberg masterfully paints pictures of times past: the voice of an old lover on TV, pronouncing a word in a specific way, shards of plates and cups abandoned in the kitchen, and a vivid, haunting image of a single electric touch; all the small things, captured with and out of love for someone and kept for long after that someone has abandoned ship. Then suddenly, somehow, a vast emptiness where a love used to be, a futile trip abroad in search for someone who does not want to be found, an endless wait for a flame extinguished as quickly as it had begun. For the protagonist of The Details, change sometimes creeps in slowly, through gestures and habits. At other times, it roars in in the form of a life-changing, short-lived affair, pulling everything apart in its path. Whatever the case, the details of each of the narrator’s relationships inevitably keep building up and up and up until they serve not only to evoke memories of that which is no longer there, but to irrevocably change the course of her life.
*
Throughout this collection of stories, Genberg repeatedly blurs the lines between fiction and reality. For one thing, she states that she felt inspired to write The Details when she was very ill and, much like the protagonist herself, found an inscription in one of her books written by someone she knew twenty-five years ago. From this point on, the memories of the past unfolded “in a certain tone”, and a year and a half later, The Details was complete (Genberg, 2024). Taken together with just how fleshed out the characters and situations in the book feel, the question that could naturally follow from this is how much it is autofiction. However, the perhaps more interesting point of note is that, not only for the author, but for the reader as well, the fictional begins to blend into the real as one progresses through the stories. Namely, as you are pulled into the protagonist’s sentimental and gentle world of memory, you cannot help but remember the ways in which you yourself have been changed and impacted by others: romantic relationships turning sour without warning, those tumultuous, hot-and-cold friendships, and of course, perpetually complicated familial bonds. Each relationship dynamic described in The Details feels at once extremely personal to the narrator’s life and deeply familiar to the reader. Much like the narrator finds herself feverishly digging through the archives of her memory, throughout the collection, the reader is repeatedly struck by the details comprising their own past, impacting their present and shaping their future: a ubiquitous archive of the sentimental and of the loved.
Through The Details, author Ia Genberg kindles contemplation about the intrinsic bond between connection and direction, masterfully drawing attention to the capacity others have to set our lives on courses previously unimaginable. In this pursuit, she not only builds her characters in a deeply empathetic way but is also able to evoke sentimental, almost universal images of human connection in the reader. “That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called “self”: traces of the people we rub up against”, Genberg’s protagonist proclaims, and the statement could not ring truer: there is no life untouched by others, no memory of past companionship without that “certain tone”. Would I recognize the me that has never crossed paths with you? Maybe I would, but all the most beloved details would be missing.
The Details by Ia Genberg is available at your local bookstore or online, starting from €12,99.
“I’ve had more than my share of magic in life, most often in the encounter with others. There is something there, and only there. I can’t be more specific than that, I can only say that if we’re searching we should look for each other, that a pair of eyes are another’s sideways colon into something, or out of something.”
Would I recognize the me that has never crossed paths with you?
Comprising of four short stories, each starring one impactful person from the unnamed narrator’s past, The Details fearlessly traverses the simultaneously alluring and dangerous landscapes of memory and human connection. Friends, failures, lovers, mothers – one after another, images of bygone times flood in when, while very ill, the narrator opens her copy of The New York Trilogy to an inscription from an ex-lover. Through one-breath paragraphs and sentences bubbling with momentum, memories begin to unfold at a fevered pace: a once-lover, now famous TV host, a housemate who has long since disappeared, a turbulent, failed love affair, and an image of a fragile, distant mother. This illness reminds the narrator of a different illness, long ago. This disappointment reminds her of a different disappointment, this joy of a different joy. As Swedish author Ia Genberg draws confident, overlapping lines through the protagonist’s life, it is impossible to remain a mere spectator to her stream of consciousness; in fact, you must dive in yourself.
“As far as the dead are concerned, chronology has no import and all that matters are the details”, the narrator proclaims in the final story, but in the time-bound world of the living, the state of affairs may not be much different after all. Genberg masterfully paints pictures of times past: the voice of an old lover on TV, pronouncing a word in a specific way, shards of plates and cups abandoned in the kitchen, and a vivid, haunting image of a single electric touch; all the small things, captured with and out of love for someone and kept for long after that someone has abandoned ship. Then suddenly, somehow, a vast emptiness where a love used to be, a futile trip abroad in search for someone who does not want to be found, an endless wait for a flame extinguished as quickly as it had begun. For the protagonist of The Details, change sometimes creeps in slowly, through gestures and habits. At other times, it roars in in the form of a life-changing, short-lived affair, pulling everything apart in its path. Whatever the case, the details of each of the narrator’s relationships inevitably keep building up and up and up until they serve not only to evoke memories of that which is no longer there, but to irrevocably change the course of her life.
*
Throughout this collection of stories, Genberg repeatedly blurs the lines between fiction and reality. For one thing, she states that she felt inspired to write The Details when she was very ill and, much like the protagonist herself, found an inscription in one of her books written by someone she knew twenty-five years ago. From this point on, the memories of the past unfolded “in a certain tone”, and a year and a half later, The Details was complete (Genberg, 2024). Taken together with just how fleshed out the characters and situations in the book feel, the question that could naturally follow from this is how much it is autofiction. However, the perhaps more interesting point of note is that, not only for the author, but for the reader as well, the fictional begins to blend into the real as one progresses through the stories. Namely, as you are pulled into the protagonist’s sentimental and gentle world of memory, you cannot help but remember the ways in which you yourself have been changed and impacted by others: romantic relationships turning sour without warning, those tumultuous, hot-and-cold friendships, and of course, perpetually complicated familial bonds. Each relationship dynamic described in The Details feels at once extremely personal to the narrator’s life and deeply familiar to the reader. Much like the narrator finds herself feverishly digging through the archives of her memory, throughout the collection, the reader is repeatedly struck by the details comprising their own past, impacting their present and shaping their future: a ubiquitous archive of the sentimental and of the loved.
Through The Details, author Ia Genberg kindles contemplation about the intrinsic bond between connection and direction, masterfully drawing attention to the capacity others have to set our lives on courses previously unimaginable. In this pursuit, she not only builds her characters in a deeply empathetic way but is also able to evoke sentimental, almost universal images of human connection in the reader. “That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called “self”: traces of the people we rub up against”, Genberg’s protagonist proclaims, and the statement could not ring truer: there is no life untouched by others, no memory of past companionship without that “certain tone”. Would I recognize the me that has never crossed paths with you? Maybe I would, but all the most beloved details would be missing.
The Details by Ia Genberg is available at your local bookstore or online, starting from €12,99.
