Book Review: Girl, 1983 by Linn Ullman

Linn Ullman is a renowned literary critic and novelist in Norway. However, globally, she will probably always be best known as the daughter of legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman and Norwegian actress Liv Ullman. Several years ago now, Linn published Unquiet, an unconventional memoir about what it was like to grow up with such astronomically famous parents. Although it was clearly an autobiographical book, Linn referred to it as ‘a novel’, to factor in the unavoidable memory lapses when writing about an era from which you are decades removed. Along those lines, Unquiet did not progress chronologically, instead hopping around in time the way that thoughts can hop around a head.

In Girl, 1983, Linn’s latest novel/memoir, she writes about her life as a teenage model – most specifically, the grooming and sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of much older male photographers. Her book keeps returning to one wintry evening in 1983, as the sixteen-year-old version of herself wanders lost around a snowy Paris, desperately trying to find the apartment of the middle-aged man with whom she considers herself to be in a relationship. Linn splits herself in two, simultaneously embodying the woman in her fifties that she is today, and the teenage girl she was back then. Her two selves explore the experience from every possible angle, and the ways it has lingered with her all her life.

While Linn’s manner of navigating memory is an echo of her previous book, whereas Unquiet covered a large span of time, Girl,1983 keeps returning again and again to that fateful night. It’s a harrowing tale, and an intensely personal one – so much so, that now and then it does feel a little inaccessible as something written for a general audience, most often when she keeps raking over the tiniest details in clothing from the evening in question. This repetitiveness to some of the sections, though stylistically necessary, does mean that this book isn’t quite as absorbing as its predecessor.

Nevertheless, Girl,1983 does reinforce how at her best, Linn’s ability to deftly navigate her memoirs back and forth through time, while acting as both spectator and participant of her life, is majorly impressive. She has such a firm grasp on her particular method of memoir, it’d be easy to overlook the difficulty of what she’s doing. She makes sure that we are never lost in the complex chronology – as the recollections flow out of her, they weave into each other in a way that maintains a rhythm that’s simultaneously consistent and idiosyncratic. It feels as if we are being let right into her internal monologue, and yet because she’s such a gifted writer, it’s an internal monologue far more eloquent and legible than most.

And despite the searingly personal nature of the ‘novel’, along the way Linn asks questions of universal importance. Can we ever let go of our past traumas? Should we? Is forgiveness always the healthiest option? How do we stop passing our own turmoil onto our children? There are no easy answers here, but the way she engages with the issues makes Girl, 1983 an unusual, thought-provoking read.

★★★★

Girl, 1983 is published by Hamish Hamilton on 15 May 2025