Assisted Living: A Novel (29 page)

Nikanor Teratologen
(a pseudonym), born in 1964, is widely recognized as one of the most original and shocking young writers working in Sweden, where his
Assisted Living
is a famous— and infamous—bestseller, provoking scandal, hatred, and veneration in equal measure.

Kerri A. Pierce
is the translator of Lars Svendsens
A Philosophy of Evil
, Mela Hartwig’s
Am I a Redundant Human Being?
, and other novels available from Dalkey Archive Press.

As if in response to Dalkey Archive’s 2010 publication of Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsens
A Philosophy of Evil
—in which Svendsen argues that evil is all-pervasive and “should never be explained away”—Swedish novelist Nikanor Teratologen’s
Assisted Living
draws what must be the most purely evil portrait of humanity in all of Scandinavian literature (if indeed its cartoon characters can be considered human). Like the Marquis de Sade before him. Teratologen has plumbed the depths of the darkest reaches of the imagination with frightening glee, leaving no horror unattended to. no taboo unviolated—be it murder, incest. Nazi fetishism. substance abuse, or even continental philosophy—and what results is a nearly exhaustive catalog of evil’s possibilities and permutations. To say that this book is not for the fainthearted is an understatement, yet what is perhaps most disturbing in this work of fiction is not the parodic grotesquerie of the author’s imagination but rather the degree to which the horrors and hypocrisies of our contemporary reality show through.

A novel $14.95 U.S. $16.00 CAN translated by Kerri A. Pierce swedish literature series www.dalkeyarchive.com

978-1-56478-682-1