Lowest Common Denominator by Pirkko Saisio, translated from the Finnish by Mia Spangenberg, Two Lines Press, 2024

When Pirkko Saisio’s father passed away near the end of the millennium, she decided to write a book that explored her history; what resulted was an autofiction that follows the only daughter of communist parents as she comes of age in 1950s Finland. First published as Pienin yhteinen jaettava in 1998, it is now out in a superb English translation by Mia Spangenberg as Lowest Common Denominator. The first of three thinly veiled autobiographical novels, it is preceded in the Anglosphere by The Red Book of Farewells, and the third, Backlight, will soon follow. It is hard to believe that someone who is so critically acclaimed in her native language—with a writing career spanning five decades—is being translated into English only recently. The hope is that this is just the beginning.

With the death of Saisio’s father at its root, Lowest Common Denominator focuses on our narrator’s childhood and is essentially plotless, with vignette-like chapters arranged in achronological order. The majority of the chapters take place in the past, while the few sections set in the present follow the narrator in the days leading up to her father’s demise, as well as the aftermath. Most of the former are on the shorter side, focusing on a particular incident, event, or person, while the longer chapters explore a certain aspect or individual over an extended period of time. These usually take the form of character studies or personal histories of extended and far-flung family members. Throughout, Saisio’s prose remains straightforward though formally fluid, capably mirroring the narrative’s varied directions. READ MORE…