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the last book. He had protested against it until the last, right until he left for the South Pacific. He had made a number of angry phone calls to Olof Lundin. The cover had nothing whatsoever to do with the content, and to top it off it was extremely ugly, hastily sketched in the sloppy style that was in fashion. Lundin had insisted it would help sales. Humlin could still recall their conversation. He had been at the airport on the morning of his trip and decided to make a last attempt to change Lundin’s mind.
    ‘I hate the cover and I will never forgive you if you give it the green light.’
    ‘Just because your poems are unreadable doesn’t mean the cover has to be.’
    ‘And what do you mean by that?’
    ‘Just what you think it means.’
    ‘You’re insulting me.’
    ‘I don’t mean the poems are bad, I mean they’re difficult. They require a great deal of their reader.’
    ‘If that’s what you really mean you should say so.’
    ‘I’m saying it now.’
    ‘I hate the cover.’
    ‘It’s a good cover.’
    He had to end the conversation because his name was called on the intercom system. Recently, it had become a habit of his to wait until the last minute to board, just to get his name read aloud and thereby enjoy the small buzz of attention it garnered him.
    *
    The train pulled out of the station. Humlin decided to mull over the conversation with Lundin until he reached Södertälje, at which point he had to start thinking about tonight’s reading. He had been planning to do this first thing, but the visit to his mother’s last night had made that impossible.
    His phone rang. It was Andrea.
    ‘Where are you?’ she demanded.
    ‘On my way to Gothenburg. Have you forgotten about my reading?’
    ‘I haven’t forgotten about it since you never told me about it in the first place.’
    Humlin sensed that she might be right. He decided against having an argument he was bound to lose.
    ‘We’ll talk when I get back.’
    ‘When I see you I want to talk about reality, not your poetry.’
    Andrea ended the conversation abruptly, as she often did. Humlin kept thinking about what Lundin had said. He grew more and more agitated.
    When the train left Södertälje, however, he forced all thoughts of crime novels out of his head and thought about the evening ahead. He liked jetting about the country and speaking about his work. Leander had once – after an especially inebriated dinner – accused him of being nothing more than a vain impresario. Humlin especially enjoyed speaking at libraries and adult education settings. He was more sceptical of high schools and plain fearful of any school at a lower level. This evening in Gothenburg promised to be to his liking. A civilised evening at the library with a focused audience of upper-middle-aged women who clapped heartily and never asked difficult questions.
    He decided which poems he would read and which version of his journey to authorship he would present. He had tried a variety of different stories over the years and had finally settled on three accounts that he could choose between at will. The first of these was the closest to the truth. He talked about his sheltered upbringing and the frightening fact that he had never felt the need to rebel in adolescence. He had done well in school, never joined any radical factions nor travelled too adventurously. It usually took him about twenty minutes to talk about this abnormal normality.
    The second version of his life was mostly lies. It consisted of a far more colourful youth and since his old classmates sometimes turned up in the audience, he had made sure to only claim such experiences as would be impossible to verify.
    The third story was about a long and uncertain path to becoming a writer. In this account he claimed to have written his first novel at the age of eight but that he had burned it when he published his first real book. This version came the closest to describing the man he wished he had been. But