The Golden Cage is Trashy Faux Feminism

The Golden Cage (2020)

By Camilla Läckberg

Alfred A. Knopf, 300 pages.

★

Where is the line between a steamy romance novel and soft porn? I’m not certain, but I’m sure that Camilla Läckberg (Jean Edith Camilla Eriksson) crossed it. Her newest novel, The Golden Cage, came with promo telling me that this Swedish crime fiction writer has written a dozen and a half novels that have been translated into 40 languages, so I guess her formula is working for her. It’s not working for me. I needed a shower after reading The Golden Cage and it wasn’t a cold one.

Many English speakers will recognize the title as a reference to living in a situation that inspires envy by outsiders but is actually a prison for those on the inside. Betty Friedan used it in her definitive feminist work The Feminine Mystique. More on Friedan in a moment.

Unless one is born into obscene wealth, most gilded cage occupants were once the envious ones on the outside. This is certainly the case for the novel’s putative heroine, Faye. She was actually born as Matilda, but assumed a new identity when she fled from a dark family secret in her native Fjälbacka, relocated to the anonymity of Stockholm, and reinvented herself. (Ironically, Läckberg lives in Fjälbacka.) In Stockholm Faye struggles at first, then acquires both a boyfriend and a BFF named Chris. The boyfriend has to go when Faye first feasts her eyes–and I’m being kind about the relevant body part–on Jack Adelheim, whom she identifies as both hot and a high flyer. Faye helps him build Compare, a marketing firm, and before you can say “knickers off,” they are filthy rich and the envy of their nouveau riche peers. It’s a dream life, but one that changes when Faye gives birth to Julienne and Jack becomes a workaholic and sexist pig. Faye abases herself to try to please Jack, but he’s soon addicted to porn and sleeping with half of Stockholm, before Faye discovers him with Ylva, a younger version of herself.

At this point, The Golden Cage becomes a revenge novel masquerading as feminist. Faye once again reinvents herself and launches a beauty product line named–you guessed it–Revenge. She draws investors from loads of women, including her landlord Kersten, who have one thing in common: Each has been screwed over by a man or two or more. At this juncture I should say that I “get” it. Millions of women have been abused (psychologically, physically, or both) by men and there’s no excusing it under the rubric of “the way things used to be.” Faye’s plan to avenge Jack’s sexism is, to say the least, unique.

All of this raises the question of whether this novel is feminist or just trashy. Jack is a truly despicable human being, but there is exactly one male character in the book who is anything more than a cardboard cutout chauvinist: Chris’ boyfriend Johan. There is also the question of what is morally justifiable. One theory claims there is no such thing as reverse sexism; another that says neither misogyny nor misandry is morally justifiable. If only these were the sole choices in Läckberg’s novel. Hers is a troubling amoral version of feminism, and almost none of how Läckberg extricates women from their golden cage is what Betty Friedan would have condoned.

The phrase “revenge is a dish best served cold” comes from Pierre Chordelos de Laclos in the novel whose English title is Dangerous Liaisons. Perhaps you’ve seen the wonderful 1988 film of that title, where the revenge is both frosty and complex. Now would be the time to say that Camilla Läckberg is no Pierre Chordelos de Laclos. A list of what The Golden Cage lacks would include wit, verisimilitude, and suspense. There is, however, crime. And let us not forget soft porn. Had I read the phrase “wet between the legs” one more time in relation to Faye, I might have hurled this book across the room despite the fact that it was loaded onto my iPad. In the opening line of my review I asked where the line is drawn between steamy romance and porn. Perhaps this novel reads better in Swedish but from where I sit, it’s not worth making distinctions. In English, The Golden Cage is trashy pyrite pulp.

Rob Weir