Peace
“The summers are always treacherous up here. Because one forgets the night. Forgets that it exists. In the same way, peace can sometimes be treacherous. One forgets the conflicts and the antagonism. Forgets that they exist.”
With an angry mob raging outside, Elina Kansa spends a few, intense days locked in a convenience store in Kemi together with her stepfather and a stranger, whom she involves in the vivid retelling of her family’s turbulent past.
This is the story of three generations and two nations on both sides of the Baltic, the inland sea with the brackish water. Here we meet grandfather Tapani, whose fate was sealed by a roach trapped in a shoe and an encounter with the bearer of a pair of small red boots. We are also introduced to mother Marjatta, who in her search for happiness moved across the sea not once but twice, and finally granddaughter, Elina who becomes our companion through this flamboyant family epic that takes us from the last days of WW2 to the refugee crisis of 2015.
Peace is a tender portrayal of an unforgettable family and the post-war people of Sweden and Finland, two countries close as siblings. It is also a Bildungsroman set against the backdrop of both major and minor world events, exploring the human effects of wartime and peacetime.
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Reviews
“Johnson, who grew up in Stockholm with a Finnish mother and a Swedish father, portrays some original human destinies, a family in three generations with side branches on both sides of the Baltic Sea in her epic post-war novel. The tone is playful but with an underlying and deeply felt seriousness. Not least the women and their stories are portrayed sensitively. [...] The novel insightfully tells of war and peace and their profound impact on people's lives. But it also shows the similarities and differences between the Finnish and Swedish mentalities. A strong debut that is sure to be talked about.”
“It may sound like a gloomy, serious book, but Thella Johnson offers so much in her colourful and lively family chronicle. The reader is made to laugh and is treated to surprises. [...] This is a strong debut novel by Thella Johnson, who has previously made a name for herself as an acclaimed investigative journalist and expressive musician. Now, she shows that she is also a great storyteller and she carries the story with vivid, whimsical language.”
“It is impressive that a novel about war can be so enjoyable to read. The narrator in Peace constantly does the unexpected, interrupts the story for a comment from herself or someone beside her in the present time. Sometimes she reveals directly how a person’s life will end, other times she only reveals details –s uch as a roach in a shoe playing a crucial role. I am immediately captivated and amazed by the language, the humour and how the author effortlessly leaps between different timelines and between joy and gravity. I devour the book and, thanks to its humor, also manage to swallow and digest the overarching theme of living in peacetime with the experience of violence, and what it does to a person. [...] In conclusion, Peace is an intelligent, touching and funny novel that appears as such an important emotional backdrop to the war in Ukraine and NATO that one wishes it was compulsory reading for everyone”
“A book that is drastic, dramatic, sad. And funny. An idiosyncratic story about what can happen to people when the wars have finally ended... [...] The fictional novel Peace is a family epic about slightly damaged people from three generations, from the end of peace in 1945 until the refugee crisis in 2015. Told at a whirling pace by Tapani and Helmi Kansa's somewhat chaotic granddaughter, Elina Kansa, born in 1979.”
“In the first twenty pages of her debut novel, Thella Johnson signals a style of reading that is usually reserved not for Swedish debut authors, but for the world's great writers. She makes her readers stand on their toes as she breathtakingly mixes global perspectives, existential concerns and everyday anecdotes. One can easily associate with a Salman Rushdie, a Dubravka Ugresic, Antonio Lobo Antunes, or why not Monika Fagerholm. And Johnson handles the gearshift of this Finnish post-war historical vehicle with excellent assurance.”
“A veritable cornucopia.”
“Oh, what a delightful epic novel to disappear into. Thella Johnson is such a zestful and engaging storyteller, making you wish the book would never end.”
“Peace is a breathtaking story where comedy and seriousness intertwine, but there is a dark undertone in the book that deepens as it goes on. I am most impressed byThella Johnson's language. It swings naturally between poetry and fiction in a way that sometimes brings Monika Fagerholm to mind, but Johnson has a voice all of her own, just like that stubborn neighbouring country that is the main character of this novel.”