Anxious People: A Novel

This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Fredrik Backman has a way of taking the most neurotic characters and making his reader feel sympathy for them. In Anxious People, he tells us that it is a story about idiots. Or maybe it’s a story about two policemen. But really, it is a story about a group of people brought together by accident at an apartment showing. There is a bank robber, a real-estate agent, a couple of “Stockholmers,” an elderly lady, an older couple, and a snooty bank worker. Everyone is stuck in an apartment trying to figure out what it is the bank robber wants, even though the bank robber doesn’t even know. The two policemen on the case interview the “hostages” afterward and are quite funny themselves. They are a father-son team who clearly love one another very much.

The characters are odd, a bit crazy, and although I wouldn’t call them any more idiotic than any other people out there, they all seem to be at extremely different stages of their lives. I especially loved Anna-Lena and Roger, the older couple who were there to try and flip the apartment. They had lots of different little schemes to make the other prospective buyers not want the place so that they could purchase it for less, renovate it, and sell it for profit.

This book brings in themes of suicide, human nature, kindness, and feelings just beautifully. It is a must-read for anyone who wants a good laugh that will also make them cry.