Anxious People
A hostage situation at an open house. Backman makes it hilarious and then, without warning, completely devastating. His timing is impeccable.
The Apartment Viewing
Fredrik Backman's 2019 novel begins on New Year's Eve when a failed bank robber, desperate for money, accidentally takes a group of apartment viewers hostage in Stockholm. What follows is told backwards and sideways as a police detective and his son interview the hostages. Each character who seemed like comic relief turns out to be carrying something terrible quietly. The bank robber is also carrying something. The story is about how people save each other without knowing they are doing it. Translated from Swedish, the novel became an international bestseller and was adapted into a Netflix series in 2021.
Reading Anxious People
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"Life has a way of forcing us to confront not just others but ourselves.
"Fredrik Backman · Anxious People
Backman is a Swedish blogger and columnist who wrote A Man Called Ove as a blog post that went viral. He has since become one of the most translated Swedish novelists since Stieg Larsson.
The novel was written during a period when Backman has said he was struggling with anxiety himself and wanted to write a book for people who find the world overwhelming. The absurdist comedy was a deliberate protective shell.