Many critics and fans have drawn parallels between The Emperor of Portugallia and Shakespeare's masterpiece of father-daughter dysfunction, King Lear. In the novel, the teenage daughter of a small-town Swedish farmer strikes out on her own and heads for the big city. Increasingly distraught by her absence and lack of communication, her father begins to weave a fantastical tale explaining her whereabouts. As he slips further into despair, the line between fantasy and reality blurs.