Oscar Levertins vänner by Martina Montelius

Boel Märgåker has founded the Oscar Levertins friends association, where said author is discussed. The members are going on a literature cruise and Boel decides to loosen up. She is tired of controlling her emotions, comfort other people, and her husband Greger. The cruise becomes a surrealistic adventure. But an older woman interested in culture, who is expected to smile and be nice all the time, can't have intimate encounters and take drogs, can she?

Marina Montelius, dramatist and director, made her novel debut 2013 with Främlingsleguanen. This book is also short, but dense, written in a way that characterizes the author. The tone is comical and entertaining, but shifts abruptly to a deep darkness with secrets such as sexual assault and violence. The blackness is even more emphasized as the novel alters between light and dark.

Boel needs literature to live, or perhaps to survive. She finds comfort in it. The novel portrays people struggling with themselves, and how literature helps them with that. But, first and foremost, Martina Montelius honor the mature woman. People has constantly commented on Boel's body and person, as recent as this cruise, when a man being intimate with her stated that she can't be pregnant. Boel is tired of being treated badly and being betrayed, something she has experienced since she was a child, and she decides that she has had enough. The novel is plunging into the depths of the mechanisms of psychology. A mature woman that refuses to accept the expectations of society is relieving. The mature woman is seldom portrayed in neither fiction or reality. How often do we wonder about what they feel? This book makes you wonder about that.