Stieg and me - Eva Gabrielsson

There is only one person who can tell Stieg Larsson's story other than himself - his lifelong companion and muse, Eva Gabrielsson.

Here she tells the story of their 30-year romance, of Stieg's upbringing and early years, and how this shaped his morals and personality. She talks of his life-long struggle to expose Sweden's Neo-Nazis, of his struggle to keep the magazine he founded, EXPO, alive, his difficult relationships with his immediate family, and the joy and relief he discovered writing the Millennium trilogy. Above all, this is a love story, and shows that if there was another secret besides Larsson's own imagination and convictions, it was his absolute love for his companion and her nurturing of their privacy and shared passions.

Their story is told as a series of short vignettes, and Eva Gabrielsson speaks with rare candour and dignity, inspired only by the truth as she knows it. This book is poignant in its account of two soulmates and the life they shared, and most importantly is deeply insightful into the man everyone wants to know better, and about whom so little is known.

"I would have preferred to have never written this book. It speaks of Stieg, of our life together, and of my life after his death," writes Gabrielsson early in her book. It was written because she alone can tell this story.