Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
You’ll like this if you’re in the mood for:
An easy-to-read story centering on a broad cast of quirky characters that explores friendship, family, and identity.
Pair this book with:
A walk through a public park and a cold beer at happy hour.
“That’s simultaneously the sweetest and most ridiculous thing I’ve heard in a very long time.”
Anxious People is a wholeheartedly ridiculous, overwhelming novel about friendship, desperation, and love.
It’s delightful.
This is a sweet and sincere novel, with enough plot twists to keep the pace moving while subtly allowing the reader to get to know the characters. It’s the closest Backman has gotten to recapturing the charm of A Man Called Ove, and he manages to both impart his message and stoke an emotional response without coming off as saccharine or didactic.
Do not come to this novel expecting a high-octane thriller. This story, at its heart, is a large-scale character study.
The drama revolves around a failed bank robbery and the resulting accidental hostage situation. But these events are really little more than a backdrop against which Backman spotlights the various characters.
These characters are well-rounded, if initially a bit overwhelming, and Backman gives each of them space to reflect on and explore their own experiences. Each individual has their own tiny idiosyncratic details that shouldn’t make sense but do (he describes one of the hostages as a man who keeps his emotions in his feet, while one of the police officers feels his in his tongue), and enough quirks to make them memorable and firmly believable.
Backman’s empathy for his characters is obvious, but he doesn’t let the plot meander too off-kilter. He uses the views offered by the different people to slowly, subtly reveal layers and details which move the plot along and turn expectations on their head. The sweetness of the moments is undercut with both sarcasm and absurdity, and as with Backman’s other books, there is no shortage of humor.
Backman warns the reader on the first page that this is mostly a story about idiots, and that is true. But the word idiot, like the word “Stockholmer,” takes on many meanings throughout the story, depending on who is speaking and what they’re trying to say. The idiots here are not stupid, nor are they ignorant; they all have complicated personal lives and rich inner lives, but don’t quite know what they’re doing most times. Just as nobody else does.
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