Millennium author Lagercrantz 'will just write one more'

David Lagercrantz will not be continuing Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series beyond 2019, the Swedish author and journalist has told The Bookseller. While Lagercrantz said he would miss “feminist icon" Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomquist, he said after book six it was time to move on to new challenges.

"I will just write one more actually,” Lagercrantz said, following last week's publication of the series' fifth instalment, The Girl Who Takes An Eye for An Eye (Quercus). "I opened a door and it made news in Sweden because I said, quoting a Bond movie, 'never say never,' because maybe I’d be tempted because it’s so much fun. But for me it is important to do something new. I’ve noticed that I develop as a writer when I throw myself out there [and I'm not comfortable]. I wrote about Alan Turing and Zlatan Ibrahimović, and and now this. My kind of authorship means I’m going to move on. I’m not shutting the door, because in the future, perhaps they knock on the door and maybe why not; you never know… But the book after [book six] will certainly be something else.”

Lagercrantz signed up to write three novels continuing Larsson's series despite an ongoing feud between Larsson's long-term partner of 32 years, Eva Gabrielsson, and Larsson's family (who by law, since Larsson and Gabrielsson never married, are rights holders to the estate) over the future exploration of rights in his works. Gabrielsson argued Larsson would have been “saddened” to see the series continue without him and went so far as to say she hoped a lightning bolt would strike the book launch of fourth in the series The Girl in the Spider's Web.

"In the beginning there was a storm in Sweden, I was all over the headlines,” recalled Lagercrantz. "There was the Syrian war and the refugee crisis, but I was top of the news. Many asked, 'How could you do this?' I think I was in Paris when it felt the winds changed and the good reviews started coming in… Maybe they only showed me the good reviews, but it felt like so much love was streaming in. That was absolutely fantastic for me.

"Stieg Larsson is such a holy figure in Sweden, there was so much controversy and that was such a pressure for me.”

Larsson died from a heart attack in 2004, aged 50, shortly after submitting the manuscripts for his first three novels and never got to see how successful his writing became. 

Lagercrantz, who subsequently took on the series, said he hoped Larsson would have been pleased to see it continue, with his name and work living on in the minds of new readers who, he argued, were more than ever in need of a heroine like Lisbeth Salander. 

“You can’t ever speak for the dead but I have not met an author in my life who is not dreaming of his figure to live on," Lagercrantz said. "That’s what we all do. We want our books not to be forgotten. So, I can’t speak for him of course, but what I know and makes me so happy is I know it’s good for his authorship - we know that from the sales figures. His books are now finding a new generation. Of course it was a huge success then, but we have this new generation now who really need icons like Lisbeth Salander. Girls growing up insecure, looking to please men, wanting to look good, and then we have Lisbeth Salander – she doesn’t care at all, she doesn’t need anyone, she’s this female cowboy but with better values. So I am so happy to hear young people are finding his books."

In the year Lagercrantz published the series' fourth instalment, The Girl in the Spider's Web, Larsson’s 2015 sales figures jumped 76% on 2014, with sales of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo seeing a 61% boost over the first fortnight of its release in hardback. In total, according to Nielsen BookScan, the Millennium series – comprising the original trilogy plus books four and five - has now sold 6.46 million copies for £36.6m, with The Girl in the Spider’s Web selling 314,248 copies for £2.3m across all editions.

It is understood there is the possibility of the series continuing under the penmanship of a different Swedish author after 2019. However, responding to The Bookseller's request for comment, Larsson and Lagercrantz's Swedish publisher, Norstedts, have remained silent about any future plans for the series after Lagercrantz moves on. A spokesperson for Norstedts said, quoting Seneca: “True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future”. 

Asked what he thought might happen, Lagercrantz said he was sure Lisbeth Salander wouldn't be going away any time soon. 

"In some way or another she will live on,” he said. "Like a Marvel superhero. And I wouldn’t have any problem with that. When you have an icon she or he has to develop with the times. Sometimes successfully, in Hollywood where they deepen the mythology around Spiderman or Batman. So she will live on. And I think that is fantastic.”

As for Lagercrantz, he looks forward to returning to a novel he has put on pause for a number of years.

"I have a novel already written and it is a love novel – a combination of love story and thriller," he divulged. "When I had these other projects, I didn’t want my novel to come out and for the critics to say it’s not good; it would destroy the momentum. It's a very nice thing for an author to have a novel and to be able to go back. Maybe I can rewrite it. But right now I have to write the third book [for the Millennium series]."

The second Millennium novel under his authorship, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, was "so much easier" than The Girl in the Spider's Web, he said, because he was able to step out from Larsson's shadow.

"I was scared to death to be honest writing the fourth book," he confessed. "I said many times that maybe it helped me to write better, because maybe you had to. But, I was afraid of the shadow of this great Larsson, and this time I think I was braver to put more of myself in it. I also sharpened it a bit because I had a complex following Stieg Larsson; of course I had a quality complex, they were such good novels, but I also had a quantity complex because he wrote these thick books … Now I think of it is as more of a collusion between us."

Musing on his inevitable farewells to Lisbeth and Michael, he concluded: "In one way I will miss it, but in another way it’s wonderful to conquer something new. They will always stay with me."