The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend is a story about the power of friendship, the love of books and finding one's place in the world. And it's a story about what a bookshop can do for a small town that seems to be struggling just to get by.
Katarina Bivald
Please tell us about the character of Sara.
Sara is a Swedish book-nerd who has almost two thousands books and three friends (if her colleagues at the bookstore count as friends). She's spent most of her life with her nose in a book. If forced to choose between living in a world entirely devoid of books, or a world without people, she'd naturally choose the books. Even if you like people, they're better in books.
Sara is not based on me. Sure, we've both worked in a bookshop, and sure, we both prefer books to people. But I'd like to take this opportunity to firmly state that I have friends, and some sort of social competence, and if I currently happen to be single at least I've had a love life.
Unfortunately, I've explained several times to my closest friends and family that Sara is not based on me, and they tend to sort of shift their eyes and say "yes, yes" suspiciously fast. So perhaps there's more of Sara in me than I've thought.
Why did you decide to set the book in Iowa?
When I began writing this book, I had never even been to the US. And yet, in a way I guess you can say I grew up there. With Fannie Flagg and Annie Proulx and Louisa May Alcott, until it felt that American small towns were as real to me as the Swedish suburb where I happened to have been born. I chose Iowa because I know only two things about the state: one, it was a part of the Great Plains, which I thought sounded magical but in reality is mostly just a part of the Midwest where they grow corn. And two, it once had a library cat named Dewey Readmore Books.
This is your first novel- so how was the process for you?
Naturally, I had no idea what I was doing. I've always known I would write a book one day. It's been a dream for me for as long as I can remember. But at the same time I never really gave it any priority. I wonder if that's not often the case - that we spend the least time and energy on the things that's really important for us?
So I said to myself: write one draft. It doesn't have to be good, it definitely won't get published, but just finish it. Pick one idea at random and write from Chapter One to The End. Since it was just an exercise, I filled it with all the things I myself love to read about: American small towns; odd, quirky characters; unexpected friendships; books, and love, of course.
When I'd finished, I sent it out to some publishers in Sweden, and got universally rejected. Naturally. But quite a few rewrites later, here we are.
How much has your time working in a bookshop helped you to write this novel?
When I first decided to add a bookshop, I thought it would be all about the books I've sold and the books I've read. But when I started writing, I found myself remembering instead the customers that passed through our store. They were often strange, sometimes profoundly uninterested in books, and also so very… human.
Sometimes all they wanted was to exchange a few sentences with someone, anyone. Sometimes they were looking for that perfect book (and sometimes I could recommend it to them, like the time when a young boy was looking for books about dragons, or with a dragon, or anything to do with dragons, and discovered Eragon - I wished I could have followed him home just to watch him read it). Sometimes they just wanted to pass a few hours wandering about the store.
And they all somehow found what they were looking for. I thought, like Sara does, that all towns need a bookshop, and that there's a book out there for everyone, even if they don't know it themselves.
You have many books in your house- so which are your favourites?
I'm afraid I can't answer that. It's like Rob Fleming in High Fidelity, who have waited all his life to be asked what his top five songs are, and when a journalist finally asks him he forgets so many of the best songs that he has to start harassing her. And I try to avoid that.
What advice do you have for first time novelists?
Use public transportation and eavesdrop.
What is next for you?
Short-term: learning not to overwater my plants. The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend has been sold to 23 countries, a bizarre twist of fate that means I can now write fulltime. So I walk around in my apartment, thinking out loud, and since it feels good to do something real I pick up the watering pot while I'm at it. The consequences of which are that all my plants have died and that my second novel will be published in Sweden this August.
Long-term: write as many books as I can, as well as I possibly can.