Millennium 4 – the Stieg Larsson book that never was
How much did he write?
Before he died Stieg Larsson had finished – according to most newspaper articles, I’ve read – approx. 200 pages of a script for a 4th Millennium book. He had also made outlines for a 5th and 6th book and planned a total of 10 books in the series.
Larsson died on 9 November 2004, only a brief time after having delivered the first 3 manuscripts to Nordstedts Forlag for publishing.
There seems to be a little controversy as to how far Stieg Larsson actually had come with Millennium 4, though. Just one month before his death Larsson himself wrote in an e-mail to his friend, John Henri-Holmberg:
“I can also tell you that I’m 320 pages into Salander four and hope to be ready in December. According to the synopsis it is going to be 440 pages. I guess that means it will end up being about 600 pages or so. I’m done with the beginning, the end and I have the episodes in the middle left to write.”
The Battle for the Lost Script
As you probably know – since it has been widely discussed in the press and on the Internet – the sad aftermath of Stieg Larsson’s death was an inheritance row. Stieg Larsson lived for 32 years with the architect Eva Gabrielsson. They never married, had no children and he did not leave a will. According to Swedish law Stieg Larsson’s estate was therefore inherited by his father and brother, which sparked an acrimonious dispute between them and Eva Gabrielsson who claimed that the father Erland Larsson and brother Joakim Larsson ”were never a part of our lives” and that they are unsuited to handling his estate.
There has been no direct contact between the parties in the five years since the author’s death. And if my Swedish serves me correctly, it says here in this article that Stieg Larsson’s father and brother was not present at Stieg Larsson’s funeral. (There must really have been some cold air …)
Anyway, Expo, Stieg Larsson’s workplace, owns the computer with the lost script and Expo and Larsson’s father and brother jointly own its contents – whatever they are.
However, Eva Gabrielsson currently is in possession of the computer and has so far refused to hand it over. An offer was made, at some point, by Erland and Joachim that she could have their half of her and Stieg Larsson’s apartment in Stockholm (which was co-owned by Eva and Stieg and therefore legally belongs to Stieg Larsson’s father and brother after Stieg’s death). Eva Gabrielsson refused this offer, calling it “extortion”.
There is currently an agreement between Eva and Erland and Joachim Larsson not to publish the 4th (unfinished) script. “It would be like letting someone else finish a Picasso,” Joachim Larsson, said to the Norwegian newspaper, Dagbladet, in January 2008
Recent Developments
At the time of writing (December 2009) official negotiations between the parties – Eva Gabrielsson, and Erland and Joachim Larsson – have finally commenced after 5 years of bitter dispute. The negotiations take place through their lawyers and are reportedly about giving Eva a share in the huge inheritance (about 24 million euros in royalties from the books alone).
If these negotiations, the first real talks between the two sides, are successful it could of course motivate both Eva and the Larsson family to reconsider their decision about the 4th book, but so far that is just speculation. We don’t even know the outcome of the new inheritance negotiations yet, and whether or not Eva will agree to have only a one-off amount of money and no share in future royalties from both books and movies.
The negotiations were announced publicly in the Swedish newspaper, Svenska Dagbladet, in early November 2009 but from that point on they take place behind closed doors.
Update December 2009! On 11 December 2009 Eva Gabrielsson announced that she had declined a ‘settlement’ offer of about 2 million euros from the Larsson estate. What happens now is uncertain but here are some of my speculations.
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What’s the 4th Millennium book about?
There’s precious little public information available about Millennium 4. So little in fact that about the only thing I know for sure is that the 4th takes place in Canada’s arctic frontier – or at least a part of it takes place there. More precisely the location is set to be Sachs Harbour, on Banks Island in the far, far away Canadian Northwest Territories.
Image (c) sadoway @ Flickr. Creative Commons License.
This is about as far away from civilization as you can possibly come these days and I feel it’s safe to say that Stieg wanted a complete ‘fresh start’ after the events of Millennium 3: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest. In many ways Millennium 3 can be seen as a closure story – both for Salander and Blomkvist and their relationship. The trial is over, the bad guys are dead or in prison, the huge conspiracy related to Lisbeth’s past is unravelled, Lisbeth herself is redeemed and cleared of all accusations, and finally the pair – Sally and Micke – are renunited (sort of).
But to be honest, I think people who see Millennium 3 as a ‘natural closure’ have missed the point. Remember, the first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was also a ‘closed’ story, and the next two books make up one big, continuous story in two parts. I think that feels a lot more like a start – with a Big Bang – than a ‘closure’.
In fact, the only reason we might feel forced to think of Millennium 3 as closure is, I believe, because we have no other choice. Larsson is no longer with us here on Earth and the story cannot continue. However, from what we know it was slated for a very natural continuation – and some of it would have been with a complete change of scene, as in remote Canadian frontier. Probably a wise choice, as a continuation of Swedish crime-conspiracy dramas in the 4th book, would presumably feel like a rehash of the previous books. Sally and Micke would need to move on to new, international (?) adventures, different settings, different villains, and these would have to give some room for the characters to grow both individually and in relation to each other. Otherwise the new stories would become dull.
A few titbits about book 4 – including the location – was mentioned in a 2008 Swedish documentary about the Larsson inheritance row, Updragg Granskning. You can watch the relevant part (# 2) the doc here on YouTube (it is in 6 parts). Just remember to bring your Swedish dictionary, as the programme is not subtitled.
Is the 4th book really the 5th??
A final note of interest for now: Danish producer of the Millennium movies, Søren Stærmose, said during a press briefing in Italy: that Larsson’s close friend, Kurdo Baksi, had told him – Stæremose – that the lost script is actually for the 5th book and that “Larsson had more fun writing the 5th book”. You can watch the relevant part (2) of the entire press conference (in 7 parts) over on YouTube – or below. It is in English with translation to Italian.
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And that’s it for now …!
But I promise you I will comb the net for more information and update this article as much as I can in the near future. If you know anything else about Millennium 4 or related matters, please contact me. I would appreciate that.
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Notes:
Most of the sources linked to above are Swedish articles, so you’ll have to use a translator, like Google’s, if you are not a native speaker – or a Scandinavian, like yours truly.
The other pix on this page are promoshots from the movies, which I assume I’m free to use unless I hear otherwise. Please, see my Official X-tra Disclaimer.
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See also:
You Can Kick Some … for Stieg Larsson’s Eva
