Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

People living around us were sick and tired of Ethel and the trouble she caused .

I had a feeling something was going to happen, it was in the air. But I did nothing that evening when I saw a neighbor go up to Ethel by the gate. And I couldn’t feel any sorrow when she was found dead in the water-but I know it’s different for Joakim. He misses his sister. If someone hurt her, he wants to know who it was .

I don’t have all the answers yet, but the man who took Ethel down to the water has promised to come over to the island today to give them to me. I’m going down to the point to meet him .

Your book can stay here on the bench for the time being, along with Ethel’s jacket .

Just like you, I like sitting here in the darkness of the barn, Mom. It’s peaceful in here .

So far I have kept this hidden room to myself. I’m going to show it to Joakim now that he’s moved here. There’s plenty of room for both of us .

This is a remarkable room, full of the memories of people who once lived at Eel Point. They are gone now. They passed the responsibility for the house and the land to us and disappeared-all that is left are names, dates, and short poems on postcards .

That’s what we will all be one day .

Memories and ghosts .

There are many beautiful lighthouses along the coasts of Öland, and there are also cult sites where animals and people were once sacrificed. But Eel Point and its surroundings are freely invented, as are all the characters in this novel.

A book about Öland that has been particularly important to me during the writing of the novel is Fåk-öländsk ovädersbok (Blizzard-A Book of Bad Weather on Öland) by Kurt Lundgren.

Thank you to Anita Tingskull, who showed me her beautiful home in Persnäs, and to Håkan Andersson, who showed me the fine royal estate in Borgholm. Thanks to Cherstin Juhlin, and to Kristina Österberg, who is the daughter of a lighthouse keeper. Thanks also to three “Stockholmers”: Mark Earthy (who found my maternal grandfather Ellert’s loading quay), Anette C. Andersson, and Anders Wennersten.

Thanks to the Gerlofsson family on Öland, above all my mother, Margot, and her cousins Gunilla, Hans, Olle, Bertil, Lasse, and their families.

Among those working on The Darkest Room , I would especially like to thank Lotta Aquilonius, Susanne Widén, Jenny Thor, and Christian Manfred.

Hugs to Helena and Klara; my father, Morgan; and my sister, Elisabeth, and her family.

Johan Theorin

JOHAN THEORIN was born in 1963 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and has spent every summer of his life on northern Öland. He is a journalist and scriptwriter. The Darkest Room is his second novel.