Montecore
Abbas Khemiri’s friends include Bono, Kofi Annan, and Salman Rushdie. He’s the greatest photojournalist of his time, illuminating the plight of the world’s poor and powerless, but he began life as an orphan in Tunisia. His “antique” (i.e., oldest) friend, Kadir, emails Jonas, Khemiri’s Tunisian-Swedish son, a novelist, to propose that they collaborate on a biography of Jonas’ famous father. Kadir is insistent, but Jonas is reluctant—he hasn’t seen his father in nine years. Jonas and Kadir begin a correspondence that conflicts in both substance and style. Kadir’s accounts of Abbas are admiring, and his writing is buoyant and often funny. Jonas’ memories are critical and laced with irony and rage. But both ultimately focus on racism and nativism, the “smothering set of prejudices” in Sweden that defied Abbas’ efforts to fit into Swedish society, support his family, and keep Jonas from feeling that he’s an outsider. Montecore will startle many American readers who know little of the anti-immigrant sentiments that have been fomenting in Sweden since the 1990s. An illuminating and involving novel. --Thomas Gaughan