A TILER’S AFTERNOON by Lars Gustafsson,...

A TILER’S AFTERNOON by Lars Gustafsson, translated from the Swedish by Tom Geddes (New Directions: $8.95; 118 pp.; paperback original). In stark, spare sentences, Gustafsson traces a day in the life of a broken-down craftsman in this bleak novel. Lonely, widowed and alcoholic, Torsten Bergman clings to life like a ravaged tree that still bears leaves on a single branch. An under-the-table offer to renovate an old house rouses Bergman from his lethargy and allows Gustafsson to explore his character’s memories and hopes in an ironic portrait of dissatisfaction in contemporary Sweden.