The Fresh Cut is aptly named: Finnish comedy-thriller specialist Antti Tuomainen offers us something that is so much more than a variation on his usual theme. Yes, the hero is an everyman doing or running something quintessentially (or quintessentially not) Finnish, up against lawless forces and the gods of absurdity. Yes, the lawless forces are cruel and delusional. Yes, the side characters are cheerfully focused. And, yes, David Hackston provides a translation that is deadpan and stylish. But there’s something about the nature of this particular caper that seems less potentially dark – and thus more accessible to a regular audience – than Tuomainen’s previous work.
When we say less potentially dark, let’s be clear. The novel starts with sawmill owner Heikki Nevalainen being summoned by local gangster-stroke-loan shark Ismo Sippo late at night, to dispose of his wife’s dead body. Nevalainen’s ‘fingers glowed, wet and red, the backs of his hands gleamed’. Very little is as it seems. Nevalainen has been hulling strawberries, because of course he has. Annaleena, it turns out, isn’t dead.
Much of what attracts us is Tuomainen’s trademark farce, with most of the characters oblivious to anything bar their own immediate interests. Nevalainen wants to save his sawmill, and as a result plays host to a bizarre Belgian industrialist. Said industrialist takes a shine to Annaleena, who’s also staying with Nevalainen while she plans her next moves. Nevalainen’s sawmill staff are up to something but it isn’t clear what. Sippo’s henchmen have philosophies as to their trade but it turns out that they aren’t very good. His lover, Jessika, is Finland’s fourth best female pole vaulter, but her lack of progression to become one of the greats has her disillusioned. And the local policeman is more concerned about the mental health of his fellow villagers than in noticing that there’s a crime ring operating in his patch.
We have the idea that alliances could be formed to tackle Sippo and save the sawmill, but the coalition that comes together is not necessarily the one we’d predict. As Sippo gets more and more desperate, though, the stakes get higher. There’s genuine tension throughout and a shocking climax.
None of the slapstick, none of the absurdity, none of the suspense would mean anything if we weren’t immediately invested in Heikki Nevalainen’s success. We’re rooting for him from the start. Tuomainen is outstanding at fusing violent scenes and a high body count with a vision of community and society that is wholesome and hopeful. You get the feeling sometimes, with writers, that they don’t like their characters much. Tuomainen loves his characters. He loves their foibles, he loves their frailties, and he loves them for their good-faith obsessions and attempts to make sense of the world. He possibly loves even his antagonists. Certainly, he gives them a reasonably fair hearing, even though the reader is left in no doubt that they are appalling.
It may be that there’s more romantic tension than in Tuomainen’s other work, or that the henchmen are less scary than usual (though I wouldn’t like to meet any of them), but The Fresh Cut feels lighter than previous novels. I do hope that it opens Tuomainen’s work to a wider audience. Everyone deserves to find humanity in the shadows.
