Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman, is one of the strangest books I've ever read. The best way I can describe it is as a cross between a Wes Anderson movie and a riddle. (I should mention that Backman is Swedish, which means that I read the translated version.) Set in a small town outside of Stockholm, Anxious People is the story of a botched bank robbery and its hostages. But it's also about, to paraphrase Backman, a bridge and the people who did and didn't jump off it. So it's a story about people. Anxious people. And as Backman says on the very first page, that includes a lot of us:
"Because there's such an unbelievable amount that we're all supposed to be able to cope with these days. You're supposed to have a job, and somewhere to live, and a family, and you're supposed to pay taxes and have clean underwear and remember the password to your damn Wi-Fi. Some of us never manage to get the chaos under control, so our lives simply carry on, the world spinning through space at two million miles an hour while we bounce about on its surface like so many lost socks. Our hearts are bars of soap that we keep losing hold of; the moment we relax, they drift off and fall in love and get broken, all in the wink of an eye." (1)
I could relate. Or at least, the old me could. Life can be overwhelming, with expectations coming from every corner. It's a mindset that's catalyzed by a lack of control, an idea that Backman weaves like a wayward ribbon, ending chapters, paragraphs, and sometimes even sentences with surprises that make you realize that we go through life with limited information. It's all very clever. And the tone is sometimes sweet, sometimes snarky, but consistently wistful, as if Backman holds all the cards but doesn't always like what he sees. It made me feel like I was reading the story through a funhouse mirror. That's where the Wes Anderson bit comes in. Well, from that and the character who wears a rabbit mask.
Anxious People shows us that we're all connected, even the most troubled among us, and that it's these connections that make us human. And not, mind you, in a let's-all-sit-in-a-circle-and-talk-about-our-feelings-kind-of-way (although I'm not opposed to that), but in the invisible, unbeknownst-to-most-of-us-chain-of-events that give our lives meaning. Kind of like a Scandinavian, hipsterish It's a Wonderful Life. Because not all bank robbers are evil. Some of them are people who just lost their way and need the friendship of a good hostage or eight to get back.
In Stockholm and everywhere.