Book Review: Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

 

Anxious People

by Fredrik Backman

Our thematic book club chose a “Nordic” theme for December. To be honest, I had to look up what that might encompass. Merriam-Webster defines Nordic as “1 : a native of northern Europe. 2 : a person of Nordic physical type. 3 : a member of the peoples of Scandinavia.”

Aha. One of the best books I’ve read in the past decade was A Man Called Ove by Frederik Backman, who is Swedish. My husband and I both loved that story. I knew he had written a number of other books that I hadn’t read yet so I checked my digital catalogs to see what might be available. Anxious People looked popular and very interesting so I placed a hold.

Apparently people were impatient and bought it instead because it soon became available as both an ebook and a digital book.

From the very first, I was drawn into the story.

The story opens with a police interview between a young officer and a slightly irritating real estate agent. (She really does seem very silly.) We focus more on the officer, and the other officer who he is working with, which turns out to be his father.

The real estate agent was part of a group of people held hostage by a bank robber. Seems a straight forward statement.

“Shortly after that the police stormed the apartment, only to discover that it was empty. The door to the balcony was locked, all the windows were closed, and there were no other exits.”

Then you get to know all the other characters that were there.

“…it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people you’re trying to be a reasonably good human being for.”

It’s about relationships, being human, being a parent, having the weight of caring for your children and other people on your shoulders,

It’s beautiful and funny and very relatable, and utterly silly and absurd at times.

“We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow.”

I soon felt like I was driving along a mountain with a crazy number of switchbacks. Just when you got up a head of steam, something changed and your whole view of the story changed with it. I love that kind of thing. There are layers upon layers revealed, depending upon perspective, and some obfuscations. Backman comes at the story from different angles, picking up the thread of one person’s involvement, then another, then ties them together in ways you might not ever expect.

As soon as I finished reading this book, I wanted to go back and read it again, to highlight all the wonderful turns of phrase and ideas that tugged at me to share with you. But if I shared them all here, then the review would be far too long and they would be totally out of context.

I highly, highly recommend this story. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.