An absurd account of fear and the hairy insides of daily life. Written in 1945, it's striking modern with its unrestrained prose that seamlessly shifts between colloquial dialogues, sharp but concise descriptions of the surroundings, and the thoughts and emotions of the characters -- this is where the absurdity stems from: the thoughts are not limited to their respective owners but spill all over the pages. That the book appears modern tells more about my lack of knowledge of Swedish 1900s literature than it tells about the book, but I can imagined the occasional frowned review among the general acclaim Dagerman's short but intense career gathered. The Swedish reader will also be delighted to smell a bit about different times; about slang that's today forgotten, as well as references to the sorely remembered Klara district of Stockholm which was some decades later sacrificed for modern architecture. B
ut also that a hangover has always been a hangover, in the 1940s as well as today.