When a Modern Novelist Perfectly Pens Everything that's (Basically) Wrong with Modern Literature
Or rather, why it's absolutely essential for every avid reader to read Andromeda by Therese Bohman
A (very) modern novel has unexpectedly swept me off my feet in such a way that I haven’t experienced since I discovered the works of Elizabeth Goudge—and I am nearly losing sleep over it.
Early this year, the United States was ever so fortunate to be graced with a translation of Andromeda, a short yet potent novel by Swedish novelist and cultural journalist Therese Bohman. Originally published in 2022, it is a bold and lovely work of fiction that both examines the modern publishing industry and what it means to be human in an ever-evolving world.
In short, it is a really, really important book—and I have a burning (and probably naive) hope that if the right people read it the tides of the entire publishing sphere could slowly, steadily turn.
On the surface, Andromeda is a novel about a young (and nearly nameless) editor and her inappropriate—but highly insightful—relationship with her boss at a prestigious publishing house in Sweden. Beneath the surface, Andromeda is a novel about the search for quality literature that deals with life in a genuine way and the ever-growing tension between preserving the treasures of the past while adapting to the world in which we live and breath now.
The prose is stunning; the narrator uncannily relatable to those of us not so easily satisfied with the modern novel. Andromeda is, essentially, a novel all about what just might be missing in (most) modern literature and publishing and imprints. Bohman so beautifully pens just about every qualm I personally have with today’s concept of fiction—and she, very fittingly, chooses the very art of storytelling as her medium to do so.
NOTE: Spoilers are forthcoming, so if you are not one to read a book after major (though not unpredictable) plot points have been given away, you might want to return to this post at a later date.
Andromeda is told in two parts: The first part is told through the eyes of the young intern-quickly-turned-editor, Sofie Andersson, who—so poetically—is not actually named for us until the very end of her narration. (I have a special affection for nameless narrators—and I didn’t think anyone was capable of pulling it off so effortlessly as Daphne du Maurier did but I stand corrected; it can still be done.) The second part is told through the eyes of Gunnar Abrahamsson, the editor and chief of the prestigious publishing house, Rydens.
Although we are not given exact ages, it is quickly implied that Gunnar (married, somewhere in his sixties) is much older than Sofie. And in spite of their in-depth conversations about work and life, there is no physical intimacy that transpires between them; they are, however, deeply like-minded and united in their search to preserve and revive timeless literature that actually says something.
The crux of the novel is beautifully penned on pages 35-37 in which Therese Bohman writes:
“ ‘It’s tragic, really,’ he said, ‘how lonely we are with so many of our memories. All those things that meant such a lot to us, the little details that combine to make up almost everything that is precious in life. A scent, an atmosphere, a particular kind of light in the sky. All those fleeting elements that can’t be re-created. Books hold so many memories, details that live on because someone has tried to put them into words, written them down and woven them into a narrative. Just imagine how many perceptions of the world are passed on from one person to another.’
There was a special tone in his voice when he approached certain topics. He still spoke quietly, but with real passion, a softly glowing conviction. I think I felt closest to him when he talked about literature, because everything he said I had also experienced but had been unable to express. How life-changing a reading experience can be, how it can fill you with a completely new perception of what life can be, fresh insights into what is worth striving for, worth believing in and defending, what it means to live life to the fullest. I realized that for both of us, something had been missing before those key reading experiences, and that the same would always be true from then on. It was like having fought in a war and being injured, carrying lifelong damage. And yet his driving force was a kind of restlessness, a constant search for the next writer who might come close to what had really meant something to him, a longing to be injured again.
He talked about literature with a certain solemnity, but he didn’t put it on a pedestal. It was more that he saw it as a powerful force, but also the highest expression of civilization, a mixture of an almost biologically determined mechanism and one of the most refined ways of rising above nature that humanity had achieved. He often returned to myths and legends, the themes that had their origins in the dawn of history, questions that he regarded as an inescapable element of what it means to be a human being.
‘Good literature almost always has a trace of that,’ he said. ‘Including contemporary writing. It usually makes its presence felt through a sense of inevitability. It’s hard to explain more clearly, but if you have the ability to pick up on it, then you will notice it when you’re reading. You are aware of an archaic trace within the story, the residue of something ancient that lingers in our own time.’
‘Like the tailbone,’ I said.
He looked at me, surprised but amused. ‘The tailbone?’
‘Yes—you know, rudiments that remain in the body from earlier stages of development. We no longer have a tail, but the tailbone is still there.’
He smiled. ‘All good literature has a tailbone,’ he said.
(I think I shed an actual tear—or twenty—after reading that passage and if you’ve ever been transformed by a particularly potent piece of literature you likely did, too.)
Overtime, these sort of conversations fuel Sofie in her search for elegant prose and stand-out novels that do not conform to the modern formats and agendas that nearly all publishing houses look for. In a publishing world centered on turning a profit and promoting literature that appeals to the masses, Gunnar and Sofie are not driven by numbers; they are driven by a “tailbone” quality of literature that decades of reading experience has trained them to both identify and long for.
It is this very sort of search that even inspired me to start a Substack about what I read in the first place. Andromeda is very much an “old soul book” set (or possibly stranded) in the throws of modern day BookTok and novelists with “a template for significant depictions of contemporary society.” 1
In spite of the novel’s clear advocacy for what is timeless and true, however, the story does confront the nature of evolution and the reality of change. Through both artful narration and poetic plot, the reader is taken on a brief journey through the life and legacy of Gunnar. Ultimately, the reader knows where the storyline of Andromeda is headed. Gunnar’s failing health leads to his inevitable death, leaving Sofie both unmoored and deeply agitated at Rydens. To be sure, it is a tale as old as time; what does it mean to love someone you can’t and how do you grieve a loss you can’t exactly talk about?
I think it is especially important that we don’t even learn Sofie’s name until the very end of her viewpoint of the story, right before she gives one of Gunnar’s former colleagues—from another publishing house—a phone call and sets up a lunch at the beloved bistro where everything essentially begins and radiates from. We get the sense that Sofie is finally, officially striking out on her own with Gunnar’s influence providing the wind beneath her literary wings.
“As well as the literature he created, I thought, he created me.”
-Therese Bohman, (Sofie Andersson) Andromeda
It is only when we begin the second half of the novel—now written from Gunnar’s perspective—that we begin to understand just how much of a lifeline literature actually was for the publisher’s old and restless soul.
On the surface, Gunnar lives a rather unremarkable life. He struggles significantly, but not necessarily tragically. Raised by a single hardworking mother, he is not well off until he has “made it” in the publishing industry—and he is only able to do so under the influence of the very sort of literature he spends the rest of his life chasing, transferring from Rydens’ mailroom to the editorial department seemingly overnight. Bohman (beautifully) writes about literature’s life-changing impact on Gunnar on pages 130 - 131:
“The whole thing seemed deeply symbolic, I thought as I sat in my bed in the evenings reading Ovid, slowly realizing that I too had become someone else. Since no god or benefactor was going to materialize and help me out, it was up to me to make it happen. All my life Mom had said, ‘If you want something done you have to do it yourself.’ She had never relied on someone else.
There are times in our lives when it really feels as if we are holding our destiny in our own hands, and we can decide which direction it will take. I couldn’t do anything about the fact that Marianne had left me, but I had no intention of letting something like that happen again—not because I had nothing to offer, or because I appeared uninteresting in comparison to someone else. And if I really did want the life I’d read about in so many books, then I couldn’t continue being a station attendant and mail boy. That was a dead end, a comfortable one admittedly, but it would never lead to insights about what life really had to offer. I didn’t want to be a person who lives his entire life constantly feeling that something is missing, that things should be different. I had just been reading Rilke, and his words echoed in my head: ‘You must change your life.’ I felt as if he were addressing me directly, and I had to obey.”
When was the last time something you read actually provoked you to do something, never mind actually feel something?
Is this an art our modern literature is slowly losing?
And, furthermore, what does our modern literature actually say about the human experience? What are we conveying—and learning about—humanity as a whole?
Are we publishing beyond the ideologies and entertainment that sell? Are we taking any risks to unearth universal truths that could feed generations to come?
I don’t have the answers; but I know the literature that does (and does not) do so when I read it.
It is not lost on me that the forbidden (and somewhat unrequited) love between Gunnar and Sofie is meant to evoke a sadness we can’t quite explain. And the very fact that all lives come to an end is enough for us to grasp the necessity of passing on the wisdom we gain from one another.
But what this novel really leaves me with is the overwhelming sense that we have to revive what literature has steadily lost and simultaneously find a way to adapt in order that we might move forward; there has to be a way in which the living can meaningfully enrich the soil laced with the residue of the bones that have come before us.
Life—and consequently the self—is what we make it, but I believe such matters are also determined by how well we can adapt. And perhaps this is exactly what Therese Bohman is getting at in regards to literature. (There is an interesting dialogue between Gunnar and Sofie on the ability to adapt to “the prevailing circumstances” on page 73 of the novel.)
Of course, this is not to say that literature is not adapting or evolving or growing—there is certainly a life-form taking shaping.
I merely wonder if we are writing passages that will outlive us.
And if we are not writing passages that will outlive us, what—and who—precisely are we writing for?
“Books hold so many memories, details that live on because someone has tried to put them into words, written them down and woven them into a narrative. Just imagine how many perceptions of the world are passed on from one person to another.”
-Therese Bohman, (Gunnar Abrahamsson) Andromeda
Bohman, T. Andromeda. pg. 10 New York, NY: Other Press, 2025