GOD JUL – HAPPY HOLIDAYS
By Jonas Karlsson
With a keen eye for detail and a large portion of humor Jonas Karlsson’s portrays the office life hardships during a few hectic weeks in December in this clever Christmas greeting.
Christmas is around the corner and management at the town hall is discussing how they could do something festive with the façade. Despite cutbacks and pending layoffs they all agree that it would be nice to surprise everyone with an exciting Christmas greeting to spread a little joy to the residents. Something special and particularly delightful, but with the specific requirement of a zero budget.
They soon invite the local media in order to document the project that bears witness to the great team spirit that prevails in the town hall. But the innovative DIY Christmas decorations prove to be more difficult to implement than they first thought. When Gunvald at the Recreation Department has difficulty understanding the importance of cooperation, the joy of Christmas transforms into outright warfare.
ABOUT THE BOOK
First published by Wahlström & Widstrand, Sweden 2013
RIGHTS SOLD
Sweden, Wahlström & Widstrand
Film rights
Sweden, Unlimited Stories
REVIEWS
“I just love Happy Holidays! Happy Holidays is so elevated, so dramaturgically consistent and skillfully executed that not a single scene, phrase or word is misplaced. Happy Holidays is like a very slick parting on a very shrewd local politician – on the dot and flawlessly told. I am extremely fond of Jonas Karlsson’s attentive way of dramatizing something as ostensibly boring as an everyday event at a Swedish town hall. And it’s so funny! But reversed-funny. For by telling it in such a humor free and objective way, Jonas Karlsson makes the neutrality fantastically funny. The grim dialogue is absolutely brilliant. I laugh out loud on several occasions.”
– Smålandsposten, Sweden
“The story feels very realistic. It’s creepy but at the same time the reader gets a chance to smile every now and then. The author works with nuances, and admirably refrains from the big gestures of crowd-pleasing satire. The content of this short novel cannot be laughed away.”
– Göteborgs-Posten, Sweden
“As suspenseful as a bloody crime novel! Hard to imagine when it comes to local politics, if you ask me. But it is also revealingly naked in its depiction of non-communication and mendacity. Of political reveries. But there is also a humorous clarity and lightness in the story’s movement and language. The pages of the book fly away, unfortunately, with a dizzying speed under my fingers.”
– Upsala Nya Tidning, Sweden
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