Excerpt from The Room by Jonas Karlsson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I wrote a note and stuck it on my briefcase:

Buy slippers.

Then I went to the coffee machine and got a cup of coffee. I reasoned that this fifty-five- minute period was already ruined. I would just have to sit it out and start again with the next one.

The bulb in the ceiling of the little kitchen was broken and needed changing. When I opened one of the cutlery drawers, I discovered that there were plenty of new bulbs there. It would be a painless task to unscrew the broken one and replace it with a new one. It seemed odd that no one had done anything about such a simple problem.

The coffee was far too hot to drink straightaway. I had to keep moving it from hand to hand to avoid burning my fingers, so I thought I might as well take a turn around the department and try to build up my social network.

First I went over and stood beside John's desk. But as I was standing there it struck me that it might be best to start with Ann, seeing as she, in purely geographic terms, was closest to me and Håkan. If I was going to expand my contacts, obviously I ought to start at the center and work my way outward. Like ripples in water, I thought. Besides, John made a hopelessly bland impression. What did someone like that have to offer me that I didn't already have? It would be unfortunate for my profile to be seen with such an insipid individual from the older generation, and thus become associated with the colorless crowd.

Ann was a woman, of course, and I was reluctant to associate too intimately with women and risk seeming pushy or ingratiating, but I realized I could adopt a gender-neutral attitude to start with. It ought to help my modern image and demonstrate a certain intellectual flexibility. Besides, Ann was looking more and more like the social queen of the department. Whether I liked it or not, she seemed to be something of a spider at the center of the web. I carried on to her desk and adopted a relaxed posture with my weight on one leg, so that she could be left in no doubt that I was amenable to having a conversation. She looked up at me and asked if I wanted help with something.

"No," I said.

She went on working.

I stood there for a while, looking at the badly drawn child's picture of a sunset, and wondered if she was aware of its flagrant inaccuracy. Maybe she was blinded by her emotional involvement? No matter what the circumstances, the child, or grandchild, deserved to be made aware of its mistake so that the error could be avoided next time. If things like that weren't pointed out, its marks for drawing would certainly be negatively impacted.

After a while I became aware that the zipper of my trousers, and thus my genitals within, were on exactly the same level as her face. So I shifted my body slightly to find a more neutral position and ended up standing right behind her chair, which also felt rather awkward. Particularly as she didn't seem remotely bothered by me. I blew gently on the coffee and waited for her to say something. It was starting to feel a bit uncomfortable just standing there. Jörgen looked up at me briefly and I decided to give Ann ten seconds. Once they had passed I walked away, taking with me the clear message: I wasn't welcome.

Håkan was sitting there typing, and I wondered if he was actually writing something or merely wanting to give the impression that he was busy.

He was wearing a shabby blue corduroy jacket, which made an unusually scruffy impression. Particularly when combined with his long sideburns, which somehow seemed better suited to the 1970s. I wondered why he hadn't taken it off. As I was sitting there looking at him, it struck me that his blue jacket had been bothering me since first thing that morning. Even before the business with the shoe covers and cloth, and before the incident with Ann, I seriously disliked that jacket. Once when he emptied his pockets out onto the desk I saw he had a whole bundle of crumpled napkins. Several of them appeared to have been used. He looked tired. Maybe he was out every night partying? Either way, he ought to take care to make sure that his work didn't suffer.

Excerpted from The Room by Jonas Karlsson. Copyright © 2015 by Jonas Karlsson. Excerpted by permission of Hogarth Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.