Let the Right One In
“In December when the police finally managed to track down the driver of the moving truck he didn’t have much to tell. In his records, he had only noted ‘18 October: Norrköping-Blackeberg (Stockholm).’ He recalled it was a father and daughter, a pretty girl.”
Let the Right One In
By John Ajvide Lindqvist
Translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2009
ISBN-13: 9781847248480
519 pages
The story begins in Part One on 21 October 1981 and ends in Part Five on Friday 13 November. A lot happen in that slightly more than three weeks’ time—dark and disturbing. I am glad I read the book because it is so different from the vampire books I have devoured (oh yes, I’m quite fond of vampires and the paranormal world).
Let the Right One In is about a child vampire living in Blackeberg in the suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. But this child, Eli, is actually a 200-year-old vampire forever frozen in childhood. Forever 12. She lives in the house next door to Oskar’s, with a forty-five-year-old man named Håkan Bengtsson whom people thought is her father. Eli lives a very lonely existence. There is more to Eli and you will discover the truth about this girl as you read on. Yes, she feeds on blood for survival, but what is she before she becomes a vampire?
Eli befriends the 12-year-old Oskar who is mercilessly bullied at school by his schoolmates and being made to do all sorts of things. The bullying gets to a very serious degree and Oskar is almost done for if not for Eli, but you will have to read the book to find out. Oskar does not have many friends.
The story is somehow tied together by witnesses of incidents as they occur but these witnesses will never have a clue. Some unfortunate ones crossed path with Eli and Håkan, and get killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But Eli would never do anything that would hurt Oskar.
There is an air of mystery throughout the story. It is macabre, grim, and violent, but also moving. I cannot help but felt pity for the bad characters even though they are bullies, murderers, alcoholics. They each have their story.
I really like the book. Although it is terrifying, it is also a touching story of rejection, friendship, and loyalty. I am planning to watch the movie too.
On a separate but related note, I also read a great article titled Sweden's Bleeding written by Stephanie Bunbury for The Age. The article is about Lindqvist who grew up in Blackeberg and his work, and Let the Right One In is also discussed in it.
Like Oskar, he [the author] was bullied at school. The streets he describes are still vividly mapped in his mind. He even found, when a journalist asked him to return to Blackeberg to do an interview, that the coterie of drunks he had described in the book was still there.
