Two characters in conversation in Ia Genberg's acutely drawn Small Comfort reveal the competing fascinations of this International Booker Prize-nominated novel: "The subject interests me. Money? I ask. No, people, she tells me. Their behavior." Translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson, Small Comfort creates an intricate exploration of wealth, behavior, and justice in five distinct chapters (the original 2018 Swedish version markets the work as a short story collection) that are tangentially linked by character or incident, but heavily related by theme.
The first chapter contains a transcription of an interview between a former child actor, Greger Johnson, now a petty criminal, and a journalist who shares a name with the author. "Do they have money? That's what I mean by success," Johnson asks, referring to other actors, but also pointing to a thread that's followed throughout the work. The second chapter comes in the form of a letter in which the story of a rogue employee is slowly revealed. The third follows a shocking speech by a hired actor at the secret, private wedding of a wealthy man--both end explosively. In yet another wonderfully bespoke structure, the fourth chapter is a doctoral student's research log recording an experiment that manipulates the rules of Monopoly to introduce temporary wealth. The last section adeptly dramatizes how far a family will push a farce to secure an inheritance. All in all, Genberg (The Details) takes readers on a keenly provoking, wild ride. --Nina Semczuk, writer, editor, and illustrator