Book Review: Anxious People – Fredrik Backman
What do a real estate agent, a bank robber, a retired fixer-upper couple, a contemptuous lonely middle-aged lady banker, a father-son cop duo, a pregnant lesbian couple, an 87-year-old grandmother and a half-naked man with a bunny mask have in common? They are all the unlikely misfits of anxious people whom we encounter in this heartwarming, dark dramedy.
Synopsis
The day before new year’s eve in a small Swedish town, an apartment open house is interrupted by a bank robber who takes hostage 8 strangers. The bank robber fails to rob a cashless bank and takes refuge in the open house with a toy gun and encounters the worst group of hostages. After demands of pizza and fireworks, all the hostages are set free. The only person missing after the hostage exit is the bank robber. The father-son cop duo interrogate these 8 absurd hostages to find clues about the bank robber’s disappearance.
The onset of the book sounds like a mystery novel, but it is more than that. The author in his quirky way deals with deeper issues like anxiety, loss, loneliness, parenthood, marriage and suicide. There are a lot of characters with a lot of backstories so we jump back and forth from each other’s lives and yet the narrator/author centres us now and then to focus on the underlying emotions and makes us see the bigger picture.
I also thoroughly enjoyed the comical interjections of the author to remind us that “this is a story about idiots” but “perhaps this is a story about a bridge”
At first, we find the characters cold, distant and sometimes even extremely weird. I felt like I was reading a book of Theater of Absurd like ‘Waiting for Godot’. As the story unfolds we empathise with all the characters along with their flaws and get to see the vulnerable side hiding inside all of them. The author deftly entwines these strangers’ lives in a way that a singular act of kindness adds some positivity to everyone’s lives and an iota of opportunity to change their views on their anxieties.
Some memorable lines from the book showcase the philosophical aspect of the novel.
“Sometimes it’s easier to live with your anxieties if you know that no one else is happy either”
“If the past was all that defined us, We’d never be able to put up with ourselves”
“We need to be allowed to convince ourselves that we are more than the mistakes we made yesterday”
“Loneliness is like starvation, you don’t realise how hungry you are until you begin to eat”
In the end, compassion saves the day. Overall it reinforces your much-needed faith in humanity. You will not regret picking this book to lift your spirits.
-Preethi