Kammakargatan review

We meet Therese, the protagonist, in July, almost as far from Christmas as it’s possible to be. It is 1997, and she has been admitted to the Cultural Studies programme at Stockholm University. She is pleased, if a little apprehensive, to be leaving the nowhere of her childhood home to start her new life there, and arranges to rent a small room in Skogås, fifteen miles from the city centre and worlds away from its elegance. She will travel each day on the commuter train; there will be plenty of time, she notes, for reading. There is something remarkably matter-of-fact about her: she approaches life with practicality and pragmatism.

In part, it is this practicality that steers Therese through her first term of university. Her friendship with Andreas begins when they agree to split the hefty cost of the course reading list; as it continues, she moves into the attic room on Kammakargatan ostensibly to save on the cost of train tickets. In many ways, it’s more of an autumn story than a Christmas one: not quite a campus novel but a portrait of student life. In Stockholm, Therese discovers a heady sense of freedom and the possibilities of new ideas; she feels alone in lecture halls but once she meets Andreas and his world of poetry zines, stylish cafes, and parties, she seems to find her place: red wine in hand, obscured by a fug of cigarette smoke. 

If Stockholm and its university represented something for Therese to aspire to from her childhood home, Kammakargatan becomes something to aspire to only once she arrives. Up in their vast apartment, Andreas and Roman are real Stockholmare, not just because they grew up here, but because of the undeniable gulf between this kind of life and renting a small room in Skogås (however pragmatic Therese is about reading on the commuter train). In this Stockholm, there are elaborate food halls and endless parties and intellectual conversations on city balconies. But for Therese, Kammakargatan quickly comes to represent something more than aspiration. Hidden away from bustling shopping streets, it is a haven of calm: as we hear in the opening chapter, nobody goes to Kammakargatan unless they have a reason to. And, once she accepts the invitation to rent the attic room above the boys’ apartment, it becomes even more than that. It becomes home.

Therese is sparing in what she tells us: the picture we build up of her comes entirely through her descriptions of her comings and goings; of her interactions with Andreas and Roman. We know very little of her life before Stockholm: in fact, nothing in this novel takes place outside of those five months in 1997. She discloses enough that we understand how it feels to be young and brand new in a big city, suddenly aware of cultural capital and the way social class sorts people into spaces they might never manage to move between. There is clearly something about her: Andreas and Roman let her in, first to their social circle and then into their home, and part of the charm of the novel is that we’re never really sure why. Therese is the kind of person who puts herself forward for things. She attempts to translate D.H. Lawrence’s poetry into Swedish for the magazine, and Roman agrees to publish it – but we’re never quite sure whether her translation is good or not. Is she shy? Is she pretentious, or just a little naïve? All three feel feasible: she is, after all, a first-year student. 

And so, to Christmas. We do get there, eventually: candles in windows, coats and scarves, the end of term. Andreas and Roman are hosting a Christmas party, leaving no expense spared. It is in these detailed descriptions that Bohman really excels: the tree and its adornments, the festive food, the empty glasses waiting to be filled. Bohman knows how to create an almost magical sense of atmosphere, and as the novel ends, it feels flooded with reminiscence. Ultimately, Kammakargatan is fleeting: a memory which starts to fade almost as quickly as it appears. As it draws to a close, so too does a period of Therese’s life, but what lingers is a sense of profound reflection; of crystallising that fleeting moment before it is lost. You cannot get to the end of this novella without reflecting on your own coming-of-age; without thinking fondly of the distant places and people that defined your own life. And perhaps that’s what Christmas is all about.