Facts: Kristin Nord
Born : 1977
Living : Sofielund in Malmö
Family : Husband and two children
Profession : Business developer at the Agency for Accessible Media, MTM, in Malmö.
Background : Worked for 15 years as a cultural journalist for Sydsvenskan.
Current with : The debut novel “Utanpåverket”
Do this summer : “Bathing in seas and lakes as soon as I get the chance, including in Bohuslän and in Öresund”.
Inspired by : “Kristina Sandberg’s fantastic trilogy about May which is a strong portrayal of a woman’s life. Jamaica Kincaid’s ‘Annie John’ and ‘Lucy’. She is very skilled in describing the problematic relationship between a mother and a daughter”.
Reading right now : “Solvej Balle’s ‘On calculation of scope’, Karl Ove Knausgård’s ‘The wolves from the forest of eternity’ and ‘The third kingdom’. It will be my summer reading. Preferably near water, in a chair I have brought with me”.
The feeling of debuting : “It was fun and exhilarating. I haven’t been able to stop myself from reading the reviews in the big papers, but I try not to Google myself too much”.
Signing now : “I’m writing a new project, but I’m also trying to allow myself to take time and not stress”.
The embryo of what would become the debut novel “Utanpåverket” began to grow during a writing course in Tuscany four years ago. At the time, Kristin Nord, who previously worked as a journalist, had long dreamed of also writing fiction. From her course leader, the writer Monika Fagerholm, Kristin Nord was taught to “go to the focal points” and to dare to trust that she had a story “in her”.
— Even though I was a writing person, it is easy to start doubting and hesitating before writing fiction. So it was very important to hear, says Kristin Nord on the phone.
She has been working on her debut novel for these four years. But only on evenings, weekends and “during a few holiday weeks”. And she has allowed herself to just sign, without thinking too much about how it would turn out in the end. She herself calls it writing “organically” and it was also a tip from Monika Fagerholm.
— It became more pleasurable not to think so much as an editor, about the text as text. Rather, it was about writing a world where you could be, without demands for what it would result in.
The desire to write and the joy of not being tied to journalism’s demands for reality claims were liberating.
“Even though the themes in the novel are sometimes dark, it has been a real pleasure to write,” she says.
Perhaps it is this desire that gives the novel its fluidity. It can be seen that a text-confident person wrote the book. Because despite the sometimes rather heavy subject matter, this is still a page-turner. It could have been different, as the novel contains themes such as suffocating family structures, society’s unreasonable expectations of women, guilt and shame, class trips – and addictions of various kinds.
Debutant novelist Kristin Nord has always been interested in the fate of life: “There is something extremely joyful in depicting a life,” she says.Tense sibling relationship
The main character in “Utanpåverket” is the Malmö journalist Julia. At the beginning of the novel, in the middle of a one-night stand, she receives the news that her mother Lilian has passed away. It will be Julia’s task to take care of the estate together with one of her sisters. Already when older sister Marie picks Julia up at Gothenburg’s central station, the tensions between the sisters are noticeable.
— Marie is very much a normal woman with a husband, children and a nice home. She is a middle manager and goes to Pilates, while Julia is single and in a searching phase in life. So yes, they have quite different positions in life and although there is a strong bond in the sisterhood, it is also fraught with conflict.
As the sisters begin to go through the estate, they realize how much of their mother’s life has been hidden from them before. Mother Lilian has been reluctant to answer questions about herself and she has long tried to hide certain aspects of her life, such as the alcoholism that also caused her death. In the house where she lived, all the rooms are meticulously cleaned, except for one. There are stacks of drunken bag-in-box cartons and empty whiskey bottles.
— Lilian is marked by life. She had a poor childhood, her husband studies and pursues a career, she feels uncomfortable in the role of housewife and, moreover, her third daughter Josefin is disabled, which makes life a struggle against authorities and prejudices. She turns to alcohol to numb herself.
Perspectives change in the novel. The reader can alternately follow Julia and Lilian. In addition, there are flashbacks to the poor, quiet grandmother Klara and other women in the family. That Kristin Nord wanted to write about women in different generations and with different life conditions was something that was clear from the very beginning.
— I myself am unceasingly fascinated by stories about women and how they reflect on their mothers. So yes, it was something I knew I wanted to do.
The struggle with the role of women
The women in the novel all struggle with the expected female role. Lilian is a reluctant housewife who feels she is playing the role of “Mrs. Björk”, Julia becomes uncomfortable when female friends want to talk about pregnancies and childbirth or when her sister nags that she should meet someone and settle down. Family formation rests like a yoke on the women in the novel. In addition, they constantly have expectations of themselves (from others and themselves) to be beautiful and presentable. That is what the title “Utanpåverket” alludes to. The lipstick is a consistent metaphor for this stuffing, which hides the ugly and what you want to keep secret.
— It can probably be seen as a painted facade, or a surface that is constantly being plastered. But for me, the lipstick also means something completely different. It is a lustful manifestation of color and form.
In the novel, exclusive lipsticks are also a symbol that poor Lilian dreams of. The lipstick becomes part of her surroundings’ class trip.
— Her husband is making a career. She can only come along as a classmate. It’s not the only thing that drives her into addiction, but it’s part of it. She ends up in a kind of limbo, where her husband and her daughters can communicate about what they read at university. She doesn’t have that voice and those experiences.