Anxious People (#929) might be my favorite Fredrik Backman book so far. (See my posts of 12/9/16, 1/4/17 & 12/24/18.) It's a wonder to me how he manages to combine humor with such a delicate and poignant attention to the human condition, and leave us wanting more.
The anxious people of the book's title are eight hostages of a bank robber who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, so you might initially think the novel is going to be a thriller, but as the story gradually unfolds, it's much more about relationships and what drives people to act the way they do. Just one bad decision can send a life careening off the rails...
Most of all, I think it's about love, or the lack of it. It's what motivates the characters in the story. It's easy to see ourselves reflected in many of the actors here; the bank robber who bungles the job, the father and son police officers assigned to the hostage situation, the old woman waiting for her husband to finish parking the car and come up to the apartment for sale, the couple expecting a baby, the potential apartment flippers and the woman who visits apartments so she can look down on the middle-class folk who can't afford a more exclusive address. There's something of them in all of us, for better or for worse.
How Mr. Backman weaves the characters' lives together to create such a satisfying whole is magical. I was sorry to reach the last page of this story, I enjoyed it so much. Highly recommended.
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