Storymusing: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

My Friends

by Fredrik Backman

A patron at the library where I work had told me for years that I should read A Man Called Ove. I said sure but I put it off, thinking it would be very literary and possibly boring. Man, was I wrong. It was one of the funniest and most beautiful books I’ve ever read. (Albeit a lot of dark humor, which I very much appreciate.)

My husband and I both loved it, then we watched the movie, and that was fantastic. (The one with Tom Hanks is good, but if you love Backman’s writing, watch the Swedish film with the subtitles. It’s worth it.)

I’ve read a couple other books by Backman since then, and loved each one. I haven’t read all he has written, but this book, My Friends, is so painfully beautiful and so funny, that it may well beat out A Man Called Ove for me. I have read it with excruciating attention, not skipping a word, and in short bursts to make it last.

There is a piece of advice for writers that is purported to come from film writer Joss Whedon which says, “Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke.”

For my sensibility, Fredrik Backman has created the perfect blend of heart-breaking stories with humorous and heart-warming interactions and moments of beautiful connection between people. It’s almost a tall tale, in some ways, but gritty and real in others. In that way, it reminds me a bit of Big Fish.

The story begins with Louisa, who is nearly aged out of her foster home, and has run away while grieving the loss of her friend Fish. Fish, “fled from reality, down into bottles, out into the fog.” They kept each other safe for a long time, but “…the most dangerous place on earth is inside us,” and so Louisa determines that “Fish was murdered by reality.”

Louisa goes to an art show to see the piece of art that has captured her imagination for years, a painting that everyone says is of the sea, but she knows it’s really a painting of something else entirely. There she runs straight into the story of the painting and a couple of the people who are part of it. She runs into the artist, literally, but it is Ted who she ends up taking an amazing journey with. As they travel, he tells her story after story about the friends in that picture.

I adore the narrator’s interjections as well. “Adults really are out of their minds.”

As writers we are often admonished to make sure we show instead of telling the story. Backman is the type of master who can take a rule and break it in just the right way.

So many times, while reading this book, I have had the urge to write a note to the author, just to thank him for writing this book. I doubt he’ll ever see this blog, but I do thank him for this book. It is the type of book that tells beautiful truths through fiction. I will be buying it for Christmas, for whoever of my family and friends that I think will read it.

We also have an author talk with Fredrik Backman in our Library Speakers Consortium listing that you might enjoy. https://libraryc.org/ssclibrary/22473