This article refects upon the role of adventure, both as a compositional feature and as an ideology, in the Swedish author Kurt Salomonson’s novels. Salomonson is usually labelled a working-class author, and this often tends to implicate a realistic style of writing. The article, however, argues that some of his novels use the genre of the adventure novel in order to launch his theme of taking risks, so as to change one’s social position and to investigate contemporary society. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, the hero of the adventure novel is not biographically determined. His or her actions are not governed by their biography or social position. The adventurer as a character and the genre of the adventure novel are used to look into the different social layers of society, as well as into the world of the workers. This perspective opens up for a more nuanced conception of working-class literature.