Lindquist, Ulla-Carin 1953-2004

PERSONAL:

Born April 2, 1953, in Kristinehamn, Sweden; died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), March 9, 2004, in Sweden; second marriage; husband's name Olle (a surgeon); children: (first marriage) Ulrica, Carin (stepdaughter); (second marriage) Pontus, Gustaff.

CAREER:

News anchor for Swedish television, 1988-2000, reporter, 2000-03. Actress in the film Aime ton père, 2002.

WRITINGS:

Rowing without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying (originally published in Sweden as Ro utan aror), translation by Margaret Myers, John Murray (London, England), 2005, Viking (New York, NY), 2006.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ulla-Carin Lindquist was a popular news anchor and reporter for Swedish television who died at the age of fifty of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the neuromuscular disease often known as Lou Gehrig's disease. When she first noticed symptoms, Lindquist began a journal in which she noted her decline and celebrated each event of her life that would be her last. The journal was later published as Ro utan aror and the translation as Rowing without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying.

Lindquist expresses her grief at having to leave her two young sons and comments on her last real meal before feeding tubes are inserted. Her final words were generated by a device attached to her nose. She loved the ocean and nature, and as her adult daughter, Ulrica, told Catherine Deveney of Scotland on Sunday online, Lindquist had instructed her to find her toys outside. Deveney wrote: "Her final words in Rowing without Oars are beautifully written, and perhaps the most beautiful thing is their simplicity. All artifice, all human pretensions and deceptions are stripped away, to the extent that the reader has to fight the urge not to avert their eyes, so intimate is what is left. On these pages, Ulla-Carin is laid bare. ‘I think she wanted to inform,’ says Ulrica. ‘She was really a journalist as a personality.’"

In reviewing the small book for the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg Web site, Susan K. Hedahl wrote: "This book is almost unspeakably lovely because of its piercing honesty and beauty of detail. It is the story of every woman/every man's inevitable journey to death and in Ulla-Carin's version, here is grace and beauty and love seen at their most honest and blessed."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Lindquist, Ulla-Carin, Rowing without Oars: A Memoir of Living and Dying (originally published in Sweden as Ro utan aror), translation by Margaret Myers, John Murray (London, England), 2005, Viking (New York, NY), 2006.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2006, Donna Chavez, review of Life Without Oars, p. 10.

ONLINE

Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg Web site,http://www.gettysburgsem.org/ (December 14, 2006), Susan K. Hedahl, review of Rowing without Oars.

Scotland on Sunday,http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/ (June 12, 2005), Catherine Deveney, "More Than Words Can Say."