‘Exquisite Corpse: Romance is Dead’ by Marija Pericic

This unsettling novel is based on a true story. Set in Stockholm in 1930, Lina Dahlstrom is dying of tuberculosis and despite her sister’s misgivings, is drawn into the sphere of an eccentric doctor, Carl Dance, who claims that he can cure her. When she dies, his obsession with her grows stronger, and he embarks on a repugnant and criminal scheme to keep her as his own for ever.

I knew, from reviews that I had read of the book, that it was based on a true story, although there is only a single phrase “based on true events” on the back cover. I do wonder how that shaped my response to the novel, because its plot line is so visceral and distasteful that I would have otherwise put it aside as a form of torture porn. The knowledge it was “based on true events” meant that the plot could not be dismissed so neatly.

The story is told in four narratives, each roughly approximate in length, that move the story along chronologically. Part I is told by Greta, a young tobacco factory worker, who is frantic to get medical assistance for her sister Lina, who is floating through tuberculosis, rather indifferent to her fate – apparently one of the emotional manifestations of tuberculosis. With few resources, Greta urges her sister to accept the offer of help by Dr. Dance, even though she feels uneasy around him. Part II is told by Dr Dance as he becomes increasingly unhinged in his obsession with Greta’s corpse, and it is here that my scoffing at the implausability needs to be tempered by my remembrance that there is a kernel of truth here. I think that this is probably the most disturbing, and the best written part of the book. Part III is told by Lina’s corpse – hard narrative trick to speak on behalf of a corpse, but others have done it too- as the sheer perversion of Dr Dance’s actions are perpetrated on her. Pericic gives her a wry humour that is not apparent in the first section, through her sister’s eyes, but perhaps a sensibility that is more 21st century than 20th century. The final Part IV is told from the perspective of Dance’s wife Doris, as she is pressured both by Dance and his friends, into maintaining a veneer of support for Dance when he appears in court. Indirectly, we see another side of Dance here, as he wheedles and manipulates Doris, who is another of his victims.

Apparently ‘Exquisite Corpse’ is a form of drawing game- something that I only learned when looking up reviews of the book. It’s where players each draw a part of an animal on a sheet of paper, unaware of what the other players have drawn beforehand, leading to the creation of a weird, implausible monster-animal. In a way, the four part structure of the book replicates that, with each of the narrators unaware of what the others have said before them. It’s an interesting approach, but one that I don’t think Pericic carried off particularly successfully. Greta and Lina were both working-class girls, but I couldn’t hear their voices. Dance, although his actual profession is opaque in the book, is American and obviously possessed of a strong self-belief, but that does not come through particularly clearly. His wife Doris was presumably of a ‘better’ class and education than Greta and Lina, but that was not apparent.

I must admit, though, that despite the stomach-churning nature of the subject matter, I was drawn in by the book through a mixture of prurience and fascination. It reminded me a bit of Ebershoff’s The Danish Girl both in its time and setting, and also as a glimpse of something intimate that is so dissonant with the surrounding world.

My rating: 7.5 (hard to say)

Sourced from: Yarra Plenty Regional Library, and read because I was fascinated by some reviews.