Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses: Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy in Feminist Perspective

15. An Open Letter to the Next Stieg Larsson

157 15 An Open Letter to the Next Stieg Larsson LeeAnn Kriegh T o the next Stieg Larsson: I know you’re out there. You may be working on your first mystery novel, but more likely you’ve published before. You’ve suffered the indignity of tepid sales and public readings for fourteen people, six of them relatives and friends. And this despite your intricate plot and diabolical bad guy, despite your rogue detective with his secret past and blossoming love affair with the raven-haired district attorney. Where, exactly, have you gone wrong? And more to the point, what is so great about that blasted trilogy from Sweden—Sweden, of all godforsaken places! Why have those books from the barren tundra taken the world by storm, achieving the mass sales and multiple film adaptations you dreamed of for your own novels? Let’s be honest: Larsson’s prose is often clunky and, at least for American readers, cluttered with a few too many Swedish words.The protagonist is a fine leading man, but he hardly pushes the genre; likewise, the plot is interesting and intricate, but nothing we haven’t seen before. And then there’s that dreadful, meandering opening to the second book and those annoying laundry lists of Ikea purchases— both of which suggest the author died before an editor had a chance to save him from himself. So why have these books been flying off the shelves while yours gather dust? The answer must be related to Lisbeth Salander, that tattooed oddball who has received so much attention. But you have 158 Men Who Hate Women and Women Who Kick Their Asses a strong woman or two in your books—that gorgeous DA, for one, but also your victims, and perhaps a cop as well. What, you have to wonder, what besides her punk-rocker appearance and nearly autistic behavior makes Salander so damn special? Well, wonder no longer. I’m writing you this letter as a fan—not of your books, of course (seriously, nobody has read them), but of mysteries and crime novels in general, and the Millennium trilogy in particular. I’m here to tell you what Salander and Larsson’s other women characters have that yours do not, and how you can create powerful women who will captivate dozens, or perhaps even millions, more readers. Here, then, are a few tips from a reader who would love to see you—or anyone, for that matter—become the next Stieg Larsson. Create Complex Women Characters Creating complex women characters seems pretty simple and straightforward, doesn’t it? Then why are there so few novelists, especially in the mystery and crime genres, who know how to do it? Let’s begin by defining terms. A complex woman character is a woman who does more than • assist the man protagonist • flirt with the man protagonist • tend to the physical and mental wounds of the man protagonist • fall quickly in love with the man protagonist • overcome initial obstacles to fall into bed with the man protagonist • kill the man protagonist, or his wife or other character, because of her unrequited love for the protagonist Yes, Lisbeth Salander does all of those things (except kill Blomkvist). But she also does much more than that. Salander’s relationship with Blomkvist is just one aspect of a well-rounded character who has An Open Letter to the Next Stieg Larsson 159 other interests, passions, and relationships, and is shown to be more than capable of living her life without Blomkvist. (Indeed, as argued elsewhere, it is frequently Blomkvist who relies on Salander for protection and guidance, rather than the other way around.) In a revealing interview with Melissa Silverstein (of the Women and Hollywood blog), Noomi Rapace, the actor who portrays Salander in the Swedish movies based on the trilogy, notes that Salander is viewed by some as an aberration, a character so well rounded she could almost be mistaken for that most human of creatures—a man. “I talked to Guy Ritchie the other day,” Rapace says, “and he said I don’t think about her as a woman—she’s like a man, she’s like a whole person.” Ritchie’s statement could lead many a feminist to pull her hair out. But as a novelist, you would be wise to focus on Ritchie’s underlying point, which is that Salander is just as engaging...