Assisted Living
SynopsisPlot
Reading like a deranged hybrid of Deliverance, Naked Lunch, and Tuesdays with Morrie, Assisted Living presents us with a series of queasy anecdotes concerning an eleven-year-old boy and his grandfather, a monster for whom murder, violence, incest, drunkenness, and philosophy are all equally appropriate ways to spend one's time. Whether it's a study in excess, a parody of provincial proto-fascism, a clear-eyed look at evil, or simply a prodigious literary dare, Assisted Living is unlikely to leave you indifferent.
Story
About this book
Assisted Living is a Swedish novel by Nikanor Teratologen, built around a series of disturbing episodes involving an eleven-year-old boy and his grandfather. The grandfather is a figure of unchecked brutality whose behavior spans murder, incest, drunkenness, violence, and philosophical musing, all treated with the same casual weight. The setting is a quiet Swedish suburb, and the contrast between its ordinariness and the extremity of the content is central to the book's unsettling effect.
The novel has been compared to works known for testing the boundaries of what literature can contain, including the Marquis de Sade's writings, William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch, and James Dickey's Deliverance. It has also been read alongside gentler works like Tuesdays with Morrie, a pairing that highlights the book's dark comedy. Interpretations vary: some view it as a satire of provincial proto-fascism, others as a deliberate literary provocation, and others still as an unflinching portrayal of cruelty. Teratologen, whose pen name derives from the Greek word for the study of monsters, originally published the novel in Swedish before it was translated for English-language readers.
