Originally published in Sweden in 1936, this novel is told through the eyes of seven-year-old Mia, as she observes her mother's relationship with her handsome but hard-drinking and unfaithful husband. Booklist calls the novel, "a poignant, yet unsettling documentary story that transcends time and place in its depiction of the struggles of the working poor, deserving of a place alongside such notables as Sinclair Lewis, Ole Rolvaag, and John Steinbeck.