Such Good Work
A Novel
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From Johannes Lichtman comes a wisely comic debut novel about a teacher whose efforts to stay sober land him in Sweden, but the refugee crisis forces a very different kind of reckoning.
You don’t have to be perfect to do good...
Jonas Anderson wants a fresh start.
He’s made plenty of bad decisions in his life, and at age twenty-eight he’s been fired from yet another teaching position after assigning homework like, Attend a stranger’s funeral and write about it. But, he’s sure a move to Sweden, the country of his mother’s birth, will be just the thing to kick-start a new and improved—and newly sober—Jonas.
When he arrives in Malmo in 2015, the city is struggling with the influx of tens of thousands of Middle Eastern refugees. Driven by an existential need to “do good,” Jonas begins volunteering with an organization that teaches Swedish to young migrants. The connections he makes there, and one student in particular, might send him down the right path toward fulfillment—if he could just get out of his own way.
“Such Good Work is, indeed, a bit Jonas-like: it’s wary of affectation or grandstanding; it works small, as if from a sense of modesty, a reluctance to presume; it cuts sincerity with the driest of humor” (The New Yorker). In his debut, Lichtman, “a remarkable thinker and social satirist” (The New York Times Book Review), spins a darkly comic story, brought to life with wry observations and searing questions about our modern world, and told with equal measures of grace and wit.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lichtman's excellent and timely debut follows a late 20-something creative writing instructor, Jonas, who leaves America for Sweden, where he shares dual citizenship. Fleeing a debilitating drug habit, Jonas settles in Lund, and then later Malm , in order to study at university for a master's degree in literature; without drugs, he takes on drinking and parties to fill the void. When, in fall 2015, he learns of Malm 's growing influx of young Afghan refugees, however, he throws himself into volunteer work to teach the new arrivals Swedish, forming bonds with the boys and finding purpose for himself. This continues as, in America, Donald Trump begins his campaign for the presidency, amping up the fear of refugees in the minds of his followers. Jonas struggles with the hate he senses from his homeland and begins to see its encroachment on Sweden. Throughout, Lichtman expertly infuses his multicontinental narrative with humor and humanity, suggesting the dangers of intolerance while also poking fun at the white savior trope. Jonas may be helping others to make himself feel whole, yet his heartfelt actions stick with the reader in this winning novel.
