During a labor strike in 1931, Swedish soldiers deployed to shield replacement workers in the town of Adalen opened fire on marching strikers and their supporters, killing five and wounding many others. Widerberg frames the notorious event with the intimate details of daily life in the small town, focusing on the lives of the Andersson family and their intersecting relationships with neighbors, strikers, managers, and friends. He chronicles domestic chores and routines, children’s games, and the mysterious pleasures of emerging love as the strike drags on, rendering the tragic consequences of the event all the more devastating.