by Fredrik Backman, 2019 (translation to English by Neil Smith, 2020)
I LOVED this book! I started out not liking it at all – not liking the characters except for Jack, the young policeman, and his father, Jim, also a policeman. But then, you gradually come to love each of the characters:
Jack and his father, Jim – two wonderful, lovable policeman, who have lost their dear mother/wife, a priest who was their joy and delight. They also have a heroin addict sister/daughter who you don’t know much about except they continually loan her money to come home and she never comes home.
Nadia – a young psychologist who is counseling Zara.
The following people are in an apartment together that is for sale and they are viewing it when the bank robber shows up and takes them hostage.
Zara – an overly critical, neurotic and rich banker who hates people but attends apartment viewings just to observe.
Ro and Julia – a lesbian couple expecting a baby and they need a bigger place.
Roger and Anna-Lena – a retired couple who buy and flip apartments.
Estelle – (spoiler alert following) an 87-year old woman who is the owner of the apartment that is being viewed (you don’t know that until near the end), who lost her husband, Knut, the love of her life.
Lennart – an out-of-work actor who spoils apartment viewings so people don’t want to buy them. He is in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet with a rabbit head on. Anna-Lena hired him so Roger would always get the apartments at a good price, unbeknownst to Roger.
Real Estate Agent – not too much known about her.
The Bank Robber – beware of spoiler alert – a poor soul who has been handed some raw deals in life and is at her wit’s end. Yes, I said, “her.” Until halfway through the book, you think the Bank Robber is a man whose wife has cheated on him with his boss, the boss fires him, he has to move out of their home, they have two daughters, he can’t afford a home, can’t find a job, has to come up with $6500 rent (!) by the end of the month or his girls will be taken away. So, the bank robber decides to rob a bank with a pistol he’s found in the basement of an apartment building. The bank robber ends up being a girl – yes, her husband cheated on her with her boss, etc. What a twist!
Well, you end up loving each of these characters and the ending is very, very happy! I loved this book. Same author wrote, “A Man Called Ove.”
Here are some favorite quotes from the book:
The truth? The truth is that the bank robber was an adult. There’s nothing more revealing about a bank robber’s personality than that. Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of “Don’t Forget!”s and “Remember!”s over us. We don’t have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow.
from Chapter 17, page 43
Perhaps you, too, have children, in which case you’ll know that you’re frightened the whole time, frightened of not knowing everything and of not having the energy to do everything and of not coping with everything. In the end we actually get so used to the feeling of failure that every time we don’t disappoint our children it leaves us feeling secretly shocked.
from page 53
The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves.
from page 57
The older couple were called Anna-Lena and Roger. They’d been retired for a few years now, but clearly not long enough for them to have gotten used to it. They were always stressing about something, but without having anything they truly needed to hurry for.
from page 105
Anna-Lena: Roger and I don’t let our feelings get in the way of our investments. But everyone else does. Like those two women at the viewing, the one who was pregnant and the other one.
Jack: Julia and Ro?
Anna-Lena: Yes!
Jack: You think they were the sort who were “looking for a home?”
Anna-Lena: It was obvious. People like that go to viewings thinking that everything would feel better if only they were living there. That they’d wake up in the mornings and not find it hard to breathe. They wouldn’t have to look in the bathroom mirror with an invisible weight in their chest. They’d argue less. Maybe touch each other’s hands the way they did when they were first married, back when they couldn’t help it. That’s what they think.
from pages 118 and 119
“Forgive me,” the bank robber suddenly said in the silence that had settled upon them. At first it seemed that no one had heard, but they all did, really. Thanks to the thin walls and that wretched open plan layout, the words even reached all the way into the closet, out into the hall, and through the bathroom door. They may not have had much in common, but they all new what it was like to make a mistake.
“Sorry,” the bank robber said in a weaker voice, and even if none of them replied, that was how it started: the truth about how the bank robber managed to escape from the apartment. The bank robber needed to say those words, and the people who heard them all needed to be allowed to forgive someone.
from pages 156 and 157
“Sometimes I don’t think I’m ready for the responsibility–I mean, I think my phone is asking too much of me when it wants me to install an update, and I find myself yelling: ‘You’re suffocating me.‘ You can’t shout that at a child. And children have to be updated all the time, because they can kill themselves just crossing the street or eating a peanut! I’ve mislaid my phone three times already today, I don’t know if I’m ready for a human being.”
That is Ro talking with Roger and the bank robber, page 163
“Do you remember asking me, one of the first times we met, if I could explain what panic attacks were? I don’t think I ever gave you a good answer.”
“Have you got a better one now?” Zara asks.
The psychologist shakes her head. Zara can’t help smiling. Then Nadia says, as herself, in her own words rather than those of her psychology training or anyone else: “But you know what, Zara? I’ve learned that it helps to talk about it. Unfortunately I think most people would still get more sympathy from their colleagues and bosses at work if they show up looking rough one morning and say ‘I’m hungover’ than if they say ‘I’m suffering from anxiety.’ But I think we pass people in the street everyday who feel the same as you and I, many of them just don’t know what it is. Men and women going around for months having trouble breathing and seeing doctor after doctor because they think there’s something wrong with their lungs. All because it’s so damn difficult to admit that something else is . . .broken. That it’s an ache in our soul, invisible lead weights in our blood, and indescribable pressure in our chest. Our brains are lying to us, telling us we’re going to die. But there’s nothing wrong with our lungs, Zara. We’re not going to die, you and I.”
Nadia, the psychologist, talking to Zara near the end of the book, page 320
Perhaps we hurried past each other in a crowd today, and neither of us noticed, and the fibers of your coat brushed against mine for a single moment and then we were gone. I don’t know who you are.
But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well.
There’ll be another one along tomorrow.
last 3 paragraphs of the book, Chapter 74
Then he writes on the very next page, “IF YOU NEED SOMEONE” and lists phone numbers for suicide prevention.
And in his Author’s Thanks:
J. Very few people have had the effect on my life that you have. The kindest, strangest, funniest, messiest, most complicated friend I’ve ever had. Almost twenty years have passed now, and I still think about you almost every day. I’m so sorry you couldn’t bear it any longer. I hate myself for not being able to save you.
He also writes in the Author’s Thanks:
The psychologists and therapists who have worked with me in recent years. In particular, Bengt, who helped me get to grips with my panic attacks.
from page 341
So, he has panic attacks. The way he describes the breathing problems, I think that must be what I have, too. Amazing to think this incredible author has panic attacks. Love him and love this book!