The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared

On his one-hundredth birthday Allan Karlsson decides he no longer can stand the Old People’s Home in Malmköping, Sweden, with its bad-tempered director and its strict rules, worst of which is the ban of alcohol. Fortunately, his room is on the ground floor, so out of the window he steps – for his age, a sensationally athletic achievement – and embarks on a series of adventures, in which he comes into possession of a suitcase full of cash, is the direct or indirect cause for several people’s death, flees from the police and criminals alike, and most important of all, meets friends for life.

In several backdrops the author, Jonas Jonasson, narrates the key moments of Allan’s life – after all, much can happen in a whole century, so there’s a lot to tell. We get to learn how Allan, whose real passion is for explosives and vodka, associates with the twentieth century’s politically great, even though there is probably nothing which bores him as much as politics. But things happen as they come, and whatever will be will be.

So, when fighting for the socialists in the Spanish Civil War, Allan happens to save the life of the fascist General Franco, which brings him a free ticket to the United States. There, he becomes best friends with President Harry S. Truman and incidentally has the kindling idea of how to put the finishing touches to the atom bomb. It is the excess use of vodka which will lead him to share this same idea with the Russians when on his way to a meeting with the communist of communists, Stalin. In the meanwhile, Allan will have saved the life of Mao Tse-Tung’s wife, traversed the Himalayans on foot, and blown up the headquarters of the Iranian secret service in the midst of Tehran. Later events will have him meet the North Korean Leader Kim Il Sung, the Swedish Prime Minister Erlander, the French President de Gaulle, US Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and Herbert Einstein, the not nearly half as intelligent half-brother of Albert Einstein.

“Completely crazy, an incredibly funny story”

Aftonbladet, Sweden

“Swedish black comic novel that reads like a road trip with Forrest Gump at the wheel”

NU.nl, Netherlands

“Hilarious … a celebration of absurd humour”

Helsingin Sanomat, Finland

Jonas Jonasson: The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared. Hesperus Press, 2012. 396 pages. First published in 2009.