Linnea Lundström

Linnea Lundström is a young woman whose account of abuse by her father, Karl Lundström, and by Viggo Dürer makes her testimony central to the novel’s treatment of trauma and justice. In sessions with psychologist Sofia Zetterlund, Linnea begins to put her experiences into words; later, after Linnea dies by suicide, her mother’s grief and disorientation reveal the damage that continues to shape the family. Linnea’s story is not only a record of what was done to her, but also of how difficult it is for those around her to hear and act on what she has endured.

Identity and Background

Linnea arrives at Sofia Zetterlund’s Clinic at Mariatorget for treatment after Sofia has already spoken with her mother, Annette Lundström, and with Karl. Sofia intends to use the same three-stage approach she has planned for another patient: first establishing stability and trust, then working through traumatic memories, and finally helping the patient distinguish past trauma from present and future sexuality. Medication remains a possibility, but Sofia hopes to begin with support and structure. The method sets out a careful therapeutic path, while Linnea’s later death shows how little control such a plan can guarantee over the course of her life.

Annette’s involvement is complicated. She has directed Linnea toward Sofia and, according to Sofia, considers Linnea stubborn. Linnea nevertheless appears willing to begin treatment, and Sofia is keen not to lose her trust. The relationship between mother and daughter is later seen through Annette’s confusion and bereavement: even when she briefly feels that everything is normal upon waking, she then remembers that Linnea is gone. The ordinary rhythm of that realization becomes a measure of the loss that has overtaken the household.

Testimony and the Men Around Her

In a session, Linnea brings out a crumpled letter she had not shown Sofia the previous day. Written by Karl during a flight a few weeks before his arrest, it begins conventionally before breaking into increasingly fragmentary and incoherent passages. Linnea’s decision to hand it over changes what Sofia can examine: the letter is not merely a document from her father, but a trace of material Linnea had been holding back. Its difficult handwriting and disjointed form also place the father’s words in sharp contrast with the effort Linnea is making to speak plainly about her experience.

Sofia’s reading of Linnea’s written account brings another pattern into view. Written in blue ballpoint, it describes Dürer’s dog being kept tied up at different places around the house, while Linnea tries to avoid it. At night, Dürer comes into her room and the dog remains outside on the landing. The account also recalls Dürer showing her an album of photographs of unclothed children and taking photographs of her in clothes he had given her. When Karl enters the room, he argues with Dürer and then leaves, leaving Linnea alone with him. These details make the adults’ presence part of the account in distinct ways: Dürer is the abuser, while Karl’s departure leaves Linnea without protection.

Linnea’s written and spoken recollections convey her fear of being alone with Dürer and the contrast between his agreeable manner by day and his cruelty at night. She describes secrecy, coercive play involving handcuffs, and the way the experiences can leave her unable to move without help. Sofia is struck by the volume of words that comes from Linnea, as though the story had remained dormant until she found someone to tell it to. The account moves between specific remembered objects and a feeling that the events are somehow outside her, like an intrusive presence in her mind. Its form conveys both the return of memory and the distance Linnea still feels from it.

Treatment, Evidence, and Justice

Sofia learns that she has met two young women in less than a week whose lives have been damaged by the same man, Karl. She resolves to seek justice for his victims even though Karl is dead. Her response places Linnea’s treatment within a wider pattern of harm rather than treating it as an isolated family matter. It also contrasts Sofia’s commitment to hearing the victims with the dismissive attitude she encounters from prosecutor Kenneth von Kwist.

When Kenneth von Kwist asks Sofia about Karl’s medication with benzodiazepines, she argues that the medication does not change the importance of his account because Linnea’s testimony corroborates it. She insists that Linnea is now the important witness. The prosecutor responds by questioning what Sofia knows about the drug Xanor, and Sofia recognizes the familiar arrogance in his manner and feels her anger rising. The exchange exposes a conflict over whose account will count: the man’s statements are treated as uncertain because of medication, while Linnea’s corroborating testimony is the basis on which Sofia insists the case must proceed.

The novel also gives Linnea’s suffering a physical and daily dimension without reducing her to evidence. She associates what happened with lasting emotional damage, visible injuries, and episodes of waking to a bed soaked with urine or being unable to control her bladder when nervous. Those consequences make the trauma present beyond any single recollection. They also show why Sofia’s planned work of stabilization and trust matters: the harm affects Linnea’s sense of safety and ordinary bodily life, not only her memories of particular events.

Death and Aftermath

At the Lundström family home in Edsviken, Linnea burns her father’s letter and flushes its charred remnants down the toilet before returning to her room. She thinks of an explanation Sofia had given about Charles Darwin arriving at the idea for his book in a sudden moment and then spending the rest of his life gathering evidence. Linnea applies a similar image to her own life, but in a bleak reversal: she believes she does not need to search for evidence because it is already present in her memories and in the lasting effects of abuse. The act of destroying the letter does not erase that evidence; it marks her attempt to dispose of one material reminder while the past remains embedded in her experience.

The scene also shows Linnea positioning a chair beneath a hook in the ceiling and knowing by heart the words of a letter from Karl, whose language presents abusive desires as affection. The connection between the letter and the chair makes the scene a clear prelude to her death without making her actions a cure or a resolution. Later, Sofia learns from staff at Rosenlund Hospital that Linnea hanged herself at home while Annette was watching television in the living room. The contrast between the mother’s ordinary activity and the death elsewhere in the home fixes the event in a painful domestic setting.

When Annette later speaks with Sofia, she describes waking each morning with a brief sense that everything is normal before remembering that Linnea is no longer there. Sofia recognizes that Annette is experiencing a brief period of lucidity amid psychosis and quickly asks another question to maintain contact. Only afterward does Sofia receive confirmation of Linnea’s death. She imagines the young woman seated across from her in the office, remembers their progress, and feels deep sorrow. The sequence makes Linnea’s absence register first through her mother’s broken routine and then through Sofia’s recollection of a patient who had wanted to talk and feel better.

Narrative Significance

Linnea’s story places testimony, corroboration, and institutional response beside one another. Her written account gives shape to experiences that had seemed dormant, while the letter she initially withheld and later destroys becomes a material sign of the difficulty of confronting her father’s words. Her death does not cancel the truth Sofia believes her testimony supports; instead, it makes the question of whether the living will pursue justice more urgent.

The novel’s shifts among Linnea’s writing, her therapy, and Annette’s bereavement also resist presenting trauma as a single revelation followed by recovery. Linnea can describe what happened, and Sofia can recognize progress, while the danger and the effects of the abuse remain. The disparity between Linnea’s effort to speak and Kenneth von Kwist’s dismissive challenge underscores the vulnerability of a victim’s account within a system that may question it. Her trajectory therefore binds an intimate history of abuse to a wider struggle over credibility, responsibility, and what it means to respond to a survivor before it is too late.