International Praise for The Invoice:
“A fanciful escape from everyday life.”
– New York Post
“The unassuming hero of Jonas Karlsson’s clever, Kafkaesque parable is the opposite of a malcontent…The Invoice explores how we define a happy life through the trials of another plain-spoken everyman teetering between banality and absurdity. Both of [his] novels, as tightly constructed as theatrical plays, are laced with incisive criticism of our soul-sapping world of coldblooded bureaucracy. Karlsson expertly wrings humor from the contrast between the bizarre, increasingly alarming circumstances in which his narrators find themselves and their low-key, matter-of-fact responses.”
–NPR.org
“A thought-provoking existential comedy.”
– Shelf Awareness
“A fable for the ages. [The Invoice] should be read alongside The Trial and Nineteen Eighty-Four as an antidote.”
–Kirkus
“Karlsson’s story recalls the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka, if those two had been, well, happy. The narrator, an affable fellow at loose ends, understands his uncluttered life better than he thinks he does, and the author’s sympathetic portrayal of him, as well as the mirror his experience holds to an increasingly Byzantine and humorless society, wins the day.”
—Publishers Weekly
“[E]ntertaining, thought-provoking and delivered with a good humor that makes it hard to resent its irrepressible hero.”
–The Guardian, UK
“Karlsson’s wry, whimsical novel excels at describing the simple pleasures of everyday life: it’s as if Kafka decided to look on the bright side.”
–Mail on Sunday, UK
“A spectacular little book … a small gem full of humor.”
–Livrés Hebdo, France
“Jonas Karlsson has written a flawless portrait of a happy, lazy rebel.”
–Libération, France
“[In The Invoice] you will find the humorous surrealism of Amélie Nothomb, the intrusive bureaucracy of George Orwell and the desperate fates Kafka’s characters suffered. Much more than just a pamphlet on our society’s obsession with money, this novel is a clever tale of happiness.”
–Gael, France
“Jonas Karlsson delivers a brilliant story.”
–Version Fémina, France
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