”Phantom pains”

”Fantomsmärtor” by Barbara Voors (Albert Bonniers förlag, september 2010)

Alba Modig has ten days to make a decision: shall she keep her unborn child? She lives a quiet, curtailed middle-aged life with cultural interests among uncut trees in the suburbs. Her dilemma is not helped by her love story with the 14 year old younger Seth. She keeps him on a safe distance, but it doesn´t help her during the nights.

So far Alba has taken only what she can get, never what she wants. It has seemed more than enough. Problems have been eliminated with an advice or an immediate solution. But neither Seth nor the decision seem to be eliminated. Her father Harald, the former lover Tomas and the best friend Marlene tell their dilemmas in order to get Alba to decide what they think is best for her. They seem to evolve around the same questions: What is a family and what function does it fill? What do we do with the children where nothing seems to fit? Whatever desicion Alba makes, her phantom pains seem to stay with her.

Behind the scenes of the novel ”Fantomsmärtor” (”Phantom pains”)

I got the idea when I read an article about every childs (un?)equal right: does all children get the same chance to life if we make tests to see whether or not they have Downs syndrom? I don´t know why but I got a strong feeling while reading the text, written by a father of a girl with the syndrom. He pointed to the fact that the child´s emotional life was completely intact, and that touched something in me. I asked myself: what is it that we don´t think we can handle? I really was, am, afraid that ”Fantomsmärtor” could be read as a text against abortion – which it is not about at all – but simply the question: which children do we think have a right to be among us? This novel is probably more driven by questions and very few answers, than any other novel I have written.

My main character Alba Modig gets ten days to make up her mind. I really liked being her and a few friends that were included in my ”reading group” (giving opinions about the novel before publishing, strongly bribed by wine and food), said that Alba reminded them quite a lot about me…. In the end of the novel I felt I had changed. My wish is that you as a reader might feel something similar, but what is up to you.