Broken: Twenty Pieces

by Keijo Kangur

AN INSIDE VIEW INTO THE MIND OF AN OUTSIDER

From the author of The Nihilist comes an intimate and brutally honest collection of twenty tragicomic short stories. Set against the backdrop of young adulthood in Estonia, its misfit protagonist grapples with shit jobs, mishaps with women, f(r)iends, depression, nihilism, and various alcohol-fueled misadventures.

Wherever he goes, whatever he does, whoever he meets, nothing ever seems to work out. Time and again he ends up feeling like the odd man out. Even when things seem good, they soon fall to pieces. But is it the world around him that’s broken? Or is it just himself?

330 pages, Paperback

Published March 23, 2025

About the author

Keijo Kangur is Estonia's enfant terrible who has published articles, reviews, short stories, travelogues, photo books, and a novel. He writes in Estonian and English.

Coming from a working-class background, he has worked in telemarketing, construction, warehousing, food service, postal sorting, data entry, call centers, and anti-money laundering.

His writing is inspired by his own life, by philosophy, and by authors such as Bukowski, John Fante, and Mark SaFranko. His favorite novel is No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai. Above all, he prefers works based on their authors’ own experiences.

His own work consists mostly of autobiographical fiction, with a focus on the darker and seedier side of human existence.

Reviews

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book perfectly scratches that Bukowski-like itch that I always get from Keijo's works. Coming from how engrossed I was when reading 'The Nihilist' I wasn't sure whether I'd feel the same with this book, but Keijo does a great job of being brutally honest about the highs and lows of his life and isn't afraid of showing the scars left behind from it. I really enjoyed this one.

Amazing job, Keijo. I can't wait for the next work you put out.

[Keijo]

My latest book has finally been released. It consists of 20 autobiographical short stories:

1. School’s Out
2. Hotel Nowhere
3. Animals
4. Leaving Lilith
5. Pointless
6. Desolation
7. Film Festival
8. My First Apartment
9. Grace
10. Irene
11. Holly
12. Rebound
13. The Pharmacy
14. My Father’s Birthday
15. Best F(r)iend
16. Meeting Morrigan
17. The Low End of a Low
18. Broken
19. Ghosts of the Past
20. Alone in Berlin

Although technically a short story collection, the stories add up to a greater whole. So it could almost be considered a "novel in stories".

As with everything I've written, it is not for the easily offended.

You can get it here.

[Daniel G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Broken: Twenty Pieces by Estonian novelist and short story writer Keijo Kangur, it's a book which contains twenty short stories (or pieces, as you wish to call them).

To be precise, they speak about nihilism, pessimism, at some point vexatious behaviours toward one self and so forth.

Solely to clarify, some of his short stories (Animals, Desolation, Leaving Lilith, The Pharmacy and Best F(r)iend) appeared previously in his author's Medium profile.

Nonetheless, the new additions on them, make reading them from a different perspective that doesn't deserve to be simply eluded.

Related to the rest of the texts, it comes to mind when something it's possible to change, when it's only a matter of time to merely accept the way we are, and of course, if others accept us like that or perhaps we ought to seek for new horizons.

Needless to say, nobody is perfect. It's not of importance to search out for its genuine signification. What's verily relevant is to understand ourselves at some point in order to survive in this tempestuous world we call home.

Although, when is it possible to know where exactly our real spot is here in this world? Is it true there's a place for everybody? How about if there isn't and it's time to accept it?

About couples, how about when trust is completely shattered betwixt the parts? Something now is irreparable and later on, how complex will it be to accept the undeniable facts?

Actually, does a real goal exist for each one of us? What is it exactly? If it does, why are there people whom die without knowing what was that specifically?

Reader, what do you think about this book? Prithee, do share your opinion with us. Take care of yourself.

[Samantha Schuldiner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is merciless. I devoured it in two nights.
What makes "Broken: Twenty Pieces" so powerful is its refusal to romanticize darkness.
Kangur puts everything on the page: humiliation, loneliness, drunken spirals, emotional paralysis, failed relationships, self-destruction without trying to beautify any of it or make excuses.
The narrative voice feels unconcerned with likability, which allows the uglier parts of experience to be exposed without softening. In a world where most art is shaped by the need to be liked, this refusal to smooth out the darkness feels especially striking.

I feel that "Broken: Twenty Pieces" rejects the illusion of neat emotional progression. The twenty pieces are not just twenty stories, but twenty fractures that only begin to form coherence once one accepts that alienation is rarely experienced as a coherent narrative. The protagonist recognizes his own dysfunction with brutal clarity, and that awareness bleeds into the prose, which oscillates between detachment and confession.
Within this structure, nihilism seems to function as an emotional register: a way of holding deep emotions at a distance. The irony looks like emotional armor, and even the humor — and the book is genuinely funny in many parts — carries the exhaustion of someone laughing because life has become unbearable.

What stayed with me after finishing it was how accurately the novel captures the exhaustion of modern adulthood: drifting through life, intelligent enough to recognize the emptiness around you, but with no clear way out of that awareness.

And then, the final part quietly changes the emotional architecture of everything that came before. Not redemption exactly, and probably not peace either, but perhaps acceptance — and maybe that is what rebuilding actually looks like.
So now I’m left wondering: were the twenty pieces ever truly broken, or was some sort of painful reconstruction happening the entire time?

[Martin Wolf · Rating 5 out of 5]

In one of the chapters, the author writes, “It sometimes seemed to me that life was nothing but a series of small deaths, a constant process of finding things and then losing them forever, one by one, until there was nothing left,” which, in my opinion, sums up the mood of the book and the events it presents. I remember when this book came out, the author wrote on Facebook that he considered it his best work so far. Although I haven’t read the author’s most famous work The Nihilist, I have read two of his earlier travelogues, and I have to agree with him—this is definitely his best work to date. Someone wrote here in a review that this is a more mature version of The Nihilist, and that the timeline of the stories spans about 20 years. Indeed, these 20 short stories cover the period when the author was 14 to 33 years old. It’s fascinating to follow the author’s literary journey from a teenager to an adult, observing his evolving thought patterns over time, his self-analysis in relation to his behavior, and ultimately, his “making peace” with himself. I'll be gladly waiting for something similar from the author in the future.

[Caspar Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

A predictably depressing but also much more mature book this time around that has clearly been cut, polished and edited with great care for a clean final result. In fact, there's enough of a through line between the stories that it also functions as a somewhat scattered novel even if that wasn't the intention.

While I assume the author would consider The Low End of a Low to be the best story in the collection due to its achingly painful revelations and gaping despair, I personally enjoyed the Estonian road trip tales the most. The best character in the book is definitely Caspar from Rebound who just jumps off the page as someone extremely likable, handsome and well-hung.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

At the verge between raw and depth. Crying over the nonsense or laugh about the sublime of existence. He is a Bukowski with more feelings and I love that. Keep writing, you are good, in a world that “good” is utopia.

[Toaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection spans close to twenty years, I think. There is a strong sense of a passage of time in the writing. In the older stories, sharp corners have rounded down and the humour shines through more easily. As time moves closer to present day, one gets a sense of fresher wounds, the perturbations less tempered and hurts still only partially transformed from punishment to lessons.

It's a more mature book than The Nihilist. Some events seem to take place at the same time but there's more of a distance, more of a balance towards acceptance and calm rather than acute suffering. The vulnerability and honesty is still there, as always.

This book was a treat. I hope to read more.