Some thoughts I had while writing Stacken/The Colony.
THEME 1: HUMANS AND ANIMALS IN GROUPS
If you open a book, visit a zoo, or go to a museum, you will find descriptions of different species and mammals, perhaps something like:
"Xx travels in flocks of yy individuals, led by an alpha female."
Or:
"Xx lives in pairs but is seen within larger groupings."
Or:
"Xx mates in the spring."
—
This definite way of describing other species has always intrigued me. And then you turn around, at the zoo or the museum, and you see people standing in their small groups, and it always makes me wonder:
If another species were to describe humans, what would they say about us?
THEME 2: STIMULI
I’ve been overwhelmed and had too much on my plate a thousand times over. It’s so boring to talk about because it’s the same for everyone I know. I’m not unique. I’ve gotten better at handling it now, but damn, it took time to learn.
Oh well. The last time it happened, I mainly felt a need to pause the visual and hearing stimuli. When you can’t handle too much at once, you suddenly become very aware of what actually is a stimuli. A kind of cheat sheet for what burdens the brain appears.
It’s lights that are too bright, like fluorescent tubes.
It’s mobile phones.
It’s not loud noises as much as multiple sounds at the same time.
You start avoiding places where stimulus gather, and slowly, you realize there’s one place where everything feels easy, where no sounds and no sights overwhelm the body.
The forest.
Is this how we were meant to live?
But even if it is how we were meant to live—would we actually enjoy it?
What if you love stimuli?
(Note: Even though I had to write a highly sensitive character into the book to explore this topic, the book itself is not about me at all. It’s entirely fictional. Sadly, I have never lived in a commune in the inland.)
THEME 3: ANTS AND ROLES
A few years ago, I walked through my front door and into the kitchen, where I saw a black swarm—a blurry mass. It turned out to be black ants. They had taken over the stove, the cabinets, the drawers. They moved so fast, in and out of food packages, like an army. I completely lost it, panicked like a toddler, stood there screaming and crying, feeling utterly helpless—because there were so many. Hundreds, maybe thousands.
In the end, I bought a small green box, and then they were all gone, just as quickly as they had arrived.
At night, I dreamed about ants, crawling on me, slipping into my mouth, nose, and ears. I tossed and turned, hitting at them in my sleep.
That fear™️ led me to start reading about ants. I wondered how they could appear and disappear so suddenly. I learned that ants should be seen as a larger system rather than individual beings. I was also fascinated by how their roles—at least as described—seemed so clearly defined. This one is the queen, these are the workers, those are the drones.
During a vacation, I somehow ended up at a musk ox lecture (don’t ask). Something the guide said stuck with me: that among musk oxen, there is often one individual that always wants to leave, which serves the function of spreading the species geographically.
That piece of information spoke to my restless soul.
What if I am a type?
What if the way you are serves a purpose? And someone else’s way of being serves another?
What if you don’t have to be everything—just a part of something?
(Note: I don’t actually believe in this theory. But it’s a thought.)
THEME 4: CHILDREN AND THE FOREST
For children and the forest, the following applies:
They have no power.
They are at the mercy of adults who are just guessing their way through.
THEME 5: PERSONAL POWER
When discussions about power come up, I often find myself stuck on a thought: that there is a factor of power that rarely gets mentioned because it plays out on a personal rather than a structural level:
Charisma.
Ugh, what an awful word charisma is. And IT!! is also a terrible phrase. Why isn’t there a good word for this?
But if we’re being blunt, charisma is what makes one person’s opinions count in a group while another’s don’t.
I’ve noticed how some people can walk into a completely new group and, within days, reshape its entire dynamic.
I’ve noticed how, if person X is absent for a day, no one really thinks about it. But if person Y is absent in the same workplace, an unease creeps in. Come on, let’s just be normal. An uncertainty is born.
Please, be bright and alert so we can orbit around you again.
THEME 6: WHERE CAN YOU BEST STEP AWAY FROM SOCIETY?
Sometimes, I spend time in different villages. One thing that has struck me is this:
In a village, people usually have a close eye on each other. But what about the solitary houses between villages? What about the villages with only one house? What about the houses nestled in dense vegetation, sitting just below the road, impossible to see into?
It has occurred to me how entirely possible it would be for no one to even know you existed—that you lived there, that you were even there at all.
I mulled over this thought as I later traveled to the big city and wondered:
Or is all of this even more possible here, where you disappear into the crowd?
THEME 7: BEING WITH OTHERS
I won’t kill the flow by writing down every single thought I’ve had while working on Stacken.
But I won’t forget to say this:
First and foremost, the book is about my great interest in how we, as humans, affect each other—in groups of two or in groups of many.
How romantic love, or other types of groupings, make us better, or worse, or paralyzed.
How they push us to do things we never thought we could—or would.
For better or worse.
—
Annika Norlin (1977) is a Swedish writer of all trades. In her home country best known as a songwriter and performer, she started out as a journalist but is also a psychologist dropout.
In 2020, she released her first book, Jag ser allt du gör, a collection of short stories. Stacken (2023) is her first novel. It’s currently sold over 100 000 copies in her home land Sweden and won two of the country’s most prestigious literary awards. Stacken is currently planned for publishing in 15 different languages, and movie rights have been sold.
Press photos by Sofia Runarsdotter