What Have They Done to My Song? Recycled Language in Monika Fagerholm’s The American Girl

Abstract

This is where the music begins" (Fagerholm 2009a, 1). So reads the very first sentence of Finland-Swedish 1 author Monika Fagerholm's novel Den amerikanska flickan (2004; Translated as The American Girl 2009). On the first pages of the novel, we find ourselves on the brink of the 1970s, and the American girl herself, Eddie de Wire, finds herself at the amusement park on Coney Island in New York. She enters a self-recording booth and sings, a capella: Titta mamma, de har förstört min sång. Det låter inget vidare. Det gör det inte. Men det betyder ingenting. Titta, mamma, vad de har gjort åt min sång. (Fagerholm 2005, 8) Look, Mom, they've destroyed my song. It does not sound very good. It really does not. But it does not mean anything. Look, Mom, what they've done to my song.