Mian Lodalen

I saw a beautiful theatre piece based on the two young actresses’ own diaries from the teenage years. It was about their friendship back then, the symbiotic kind, bordering on love, and also about that shameful thing that they left out of the diaries – that they shared early sexual experiences together. It was such a tender and sad performance I wanted more, and picked up this book . Mian Lodalen was famous as a gay rights activists in the nineties, and this book is documentary fiction about her teenage years, growing up in religious Jönköping in the seventies.

Connie is living in a foster home, with realatives that don’t really care much. Her dad is a crazy, and her mother is dead. Connie is at the bottom of her class in every subject, flat and boyish like a board, poor and dressed in hopeless clothes, and has no real friends. But, changing to a new school, she teams up with another group of working class outcasts and finds herself belonging to a group for the first time. They call themselves Sisters in Crime, and steal, drink, smoke and cause mayhem in school, knowing they have no future and choosing not giving a damn. But when well-adjusted Anna in 8th grade smiles at Connie and ask her to dance at a party, something wakes within her. Something shameful and secret, something even her rebel friends couldn’t possibly understand.

The book is nowhere near as good as that theatre performance. But it’s daring and no-nonsense, funny and sad. Lodalen isn’t quite secure as a stylist, and there are some annoying anachronisms in here. But also a lot of insight and solidarity with the teenage outlook on life and love. And if nothing else, this is a reminder of just how shunned homosexuality was in this country thirty years ago – a “disease” Connie is convinced she’s the only one in Sweden to carry. It’s also a real pageturner – I speeded through it in just a day, on top of work and taking care of two children.… (mehr)

Baksidestexten:

My lever sedan en tid i trygg tvåsamhet med stora kärleken Bob, men sliter med hur hon ska förhindra LSD (den lesbiska sängdöden) som hotar förhållandet. Smulsystrarna satsar på vuxenliv. Hedda genom att försöka bli gravid och Mackan, inte lika lyckosamt, med suspekt pojkvän på fängelsedistans.

Bob och My får en okonventionell idé som kan förnya deras sexliv och lösningen uppenbarar sig när en tredje part oväntat dyker upp... Det är okej att vara med andra, bara man gör det tillsammans och så länge man kör med raka puckar. Hur ärlig måste man vara för att få en trekant att hålla? My är plötsligt ute på djupt vatten. Igen.

Liksom Smulklubbens skamlösa systrar är Trekant en rapp och underhållande relationsroman. Här varvas värme och humor med självironi och förtvivlan.

Trekant är ett humoristiskt angrepp på kärnfamiljen och den traditionella tvåsamheten där Mian Lodalen blandar skarpsynta iakttagelser om heteroliv och homoidentitet.… (mehr)