Anxious People

If left to my own devices, I would not have finished this book by Fredrik Backman ( see post for A Man Called Ove) but it is the April choice for my reading group and so finish it I did. Backman opens the book by saying, “This is a book about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots.” The first half felt torturous as the police interview wildly uncooperative witnesses; the 2nd half was so full of heart that it sometimes brought me to tears or at least made me stop and think. One of my favorite lines, spoken by half of a Lesbian couple was "You don't fall in love with a gender; you fall in love with a person." There are some very Scandinavian (specifically Swedish) jokes in here--especially re the use of the term "Stockholmers," which, depending on the speaker and the intonation can mean homosexual people or people from Stockholm. Both meanings in this story have a somewhat pejorative implication. USA Today notes in their review, "no one here is lovable or even likable – not at first."

A would-be bank robber discovers that the targeted bank doesn't deal in cash and in a rush to escape, ends up at an apartment viewing, holding several prospective buyers as hostages ("worst hostages ever") as the robber bemoans. It's also a sort of locked room mystery because the robber disappears when the hostages are released, even though there was no unmonitored escape route. It is a wild assortment of people whose stories gradually unfold as we learn what brought them all to this place at this exact time--the day before New Year's Eve--and how their lives are interconnected in ways of which they are unaware at the beginning of the story. 

Here's a rundown of the people at the viewing, according to Kirkus: "...the ridiculous realtor; an older couple who renovates and sells apartments in an effort to stay busy; a bickering young couple expecting their first child; a well-off woman interested only in the view from the balcony of a significant bridge in her life; an elderly woman missing her husband as New Year’s Eve approaches; and, absurdly, an actor dressed as a rabbit hired to disrupt the showing and drive down the apartment price." Add in the inept robber and the therapist of one of the people at the viewing, who, it turns out, is also connected in more ways than one. And of course the two small-town policemen, who are father and son, have significant roles to play. Kirkus concludes the review by saying this is a story full of both comedy and heartbreak. The ending offers surprises and happy endings.