Anxious People (by Fredrik Backman)

(Amazon UK link)

I had not heard of Fredrik Backman, although I gather he’s written some bestselling novels, one of which is soon to be released as a film. His book ‘Anxious People’ was allocated for this month’s reading group, so I acquired a copy and then read it in three or four days. The author is Swedish, and writes in that language, so I was reading a translation - and am very impressed with that. The language not only flows extremely well, but even manages an annoying pun that’s mentioned more than once.

Having said that, it took me a little while to get into the book. The chapters are short, the time frame variable, and the subject matter somewhat up for debate. My summary is that it’s about a group of people who were taken hostage after a failed bank robbery. But it’s also about capitalist society, and depression, and there’s a bridge that features quite heavily. Pizza, too, and fireworks, and people hiding things from others…

It’s essentially character-driven, and the author clearly has tremendous empathy, able to get under the skins of a variety of different folk. Amongst the hostages there’s a caring elderly woman, a middle-aged married couple, a young lesbian couple, one of whom is quite heavily pregnant, and an older, single woman who is either obsessive-compulsive or autistic. There’s also an estate agent, though she doesn’t feature all that much (other than with her annoying tagline that was cleverly translated), and - though we don’t meet him at first - a guy dressed as a rabbit.

These diverse people are introduced somewhat randomly as they meet each other, initially at a viewing of a flat that’s for sale. Much is made of it being on the day before New Year’s Eve. But we also learn about a man who jumped off a bridge ten years earlier, and a little background into why the bank robber decided to do something as drastic as robbing a bank.

There are lots of other bits of background information that get filled in, sometimes in chapters that are shorter than a single page. I couldn’t keep everything in my mind, so when I was part-way through the book I went back to re-read some of the introductory section. It made more sense then, but I can see why the author did what he did.

Some quite heavy issues are covered in the gradual unfolding of people’s personalities, so it’s impressive that there is also some humour. There were several places where I smiled at the phrasing of a comment, or the way people were behaving. The balance is extremely well done, without in any way detracting from the serious nature of living with anxieties and immense stress, of not fitting in with society, or of trying to make a good life for one’s children despite a difficult childhood of one’s own.

There are some unexpected twists and turns, including a couple of revelations that I really wasn’t expecting (one of which made me go back, yet again, to an earlier section to try to figure out why I hadn’t seen it coming). And the ending is entirely satisfactory, with a kind of postscript that tells us what was going to happen to some of the characters in the future.

Those who prefer action-driven books, or those with a lot of clear plot may find this slow-moving or dull, but for those of us - and it included most of the reading group - who love character-driven books, I would recommend this highly. The entire main story takes place over just a few hours, but there are many flashbacks to events in the past, to circumstances that led to each of the hostages being present, and to one of the characters in discussion with a psychiatrist.

Overall, I enjoyed the book very much and may even look out for others by the same author.

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