Anxious People is already a bestseller. Backman’s previous book A Man Called Ove was a huge seller. It’s surprising for Swedish novels that are not about grizzly serial killers. But Anxious People does feature plenty of existential dread, thoughts of suicide, and the randomness of life. Probably, it’s popularity stems from a feel-good ending and some bizarre humor, wrapped up in an unpredictable plot. The narrator plays some games with the reader in a good hearted way, which adds to the playfulness. 

It is hard to say much about the book without giving the plot away. It starts out with a mystery. Set in small town Sweden, a bankrobber with a gun fails to rob a bank (it is a cashless bank) and then runs away into an apartment to escape the police. The apartment is being shown to prospective buyers by a realtor. The group is held hostage for several hours but the bankrobber does not make any demands. The group is released and the police go in to arrest the bankrobber, but the apartment is empty. 

The police investigating are an older and younger man who get into lots of arguments. It turns out they are father and son. The father is bumbling and the son is constantly annoyed. We learn more about their relationship as the story unfolds. The same is true for the bankrobber, and the people in the apartment. People go from being anonymous at the start to being rounded people who face difficult lives. They reveal their flaws and others accept them. 

Along the way, we see people’s neurotic preoccupations, their hopeless thoughts, their failures in relationships, their fears, and their lies, and the consistent message is that while people are idiots, they are capable of love and respond well to kindness and forgiveness. It manages to avoid being sappy though. 

Christian Perring is editor of Metapsychology Online Reviews.

Categories: Fiction

Keywords: fiction, Fredrik Backman