April Witch
Majgull Axelsson (Translated by Linda Schenck)
I breezed through this 408 page novel in three days. Being who I am and knowing the plot of this book it is easy to understand why I devoured this book so voraciously. Originally published in Sweden in 1997, it won the coveted August Prize and created a stir in its home country, mostly due to its realistic and harsh description of Sweden’s post-war welfare state.
This book has much deeper topics to ponder than Swedish politics, though. The book centers around Desiree, a severely disabled woman, unable to speak or walk or care for herself, who spends almost her entire life in a nursing home after being abandoned by her mother. But Desiree is not the vegetable she appears to be and was assumed to be in her early years: she has a great intellect, spending her hours musing on quantum physics, philosophy and “The Great Trickster’s” cruel joke he played upon her.
Desiree is also an “April Witch,” a being whom is trapped in a severely disabled body but who is able to travel through time and space, enter and take possession of other minds, both human and inhuman. Her psychic gifts allow her to pay supernatural visits to the three foster sisters that her mother adopted after abandoning her. The three sisters know nothing of her existence but Desiree has an intimate knowledge of theirs.
Desiree, overflowing with bitterness and envy because of her fate, is determined to discover which of her three sisters “stole” the life that she believes should have been hers. Upon further investigation it is revealed that their lives are no better or worse than hers: they are each filled with emotional troubles, longing and loneliness, just as much as, if not more so, than Desiree.
Desiree is considered to be nothing but “a piece of driftwood” by most who come into contact with her, a member of society who has no apparent value and who must be cared for by the government. The only person that has any sense of her extraordinary intellect and psychic gifts is her primary care doctor. Her relationship with her doctor is both intimate and professional: Desiree realizes that this doctor is the only person who has ever sought to understand her and who has ever desired a real relationship with her. The reality of her severe disabilities only feed into her loneliness when she is unable to have the relationship with him that she desires.
Approximately half of the book focuses on Desiree and the other half on the sisters, their past and the chain of events that leads to the surprising ending. Although this is a translation the prose is lush and lyrical, especially in passages where Desiree is musing about her own fate. The book challenges our views on our understanding of “quality of life,” right-to-life and multiple aspects of disability politics, particularly for those who are severely disabled.
While Desiree possess supernatural abilities her psychic gifts play a much more minimal role than expected in the book. The relationships between the characters and Desiree’s own musings about her fate play a far more important role in the unfolding of the story than the minor supernatural undertone.