Book review: My Friends by Fredrik Backman

I follow Swedish author Fredrik Backman on social media and he is hilarious. English obviously isn’t his first language but he shares these funny (often self-deprecating) anecdotes and his wit is startlingly clever. He’d be an amazing screenwriter, though for all I know he might have played a role in translating some of his books to screen already. My Friends is his latest release and I was very fortunate to win an advance reading copy because I fell in love with this book from the opening paragraphs – which I shared screenshot and shared on Instagram even though I had an advance reader (potentially uncorrected copy) from which you’re not supposed to quote – in case of later changes!

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.

My thoughts

The beauty and extraordinariness of this book is in its writing. Backman’s storytelling and character development is amazing – we know that from previous books like A Man Called Ove, Britt-Marie Was Here and many many more. And here – in teenager Louisa and former-teacher Ted (most specifically) he’s created two very different characters but Backman seems to have a talent for knowing how lifelong friendships are formed – that union of kindred spirits… ‘your best humans’. Here in the present ‘the artist’ sees it immediately in Louisa, despite their very brief meeting. Ted sees immediately what the artist would have seen in Louisa, recognising she was one of ‘their people’.

Backman does a great job with the teenaged foursome as they drift through a dire time in their young lives and he also keeps us guessing as to the pivotal moment we know is coming. Planting clues that had me turning pages, fearing impending trauma, but desperately wanting to bury myself in this story nonetheless.

In some ways this didn’t culminate in the poignancy I was expecting (and the only reason it doesn’t get a rare 5-stars from me) and I can’t really explain why I wanted more drama or devastation. I cried big ugly tears many times when reading this book. I appreciated the ‘journey’ (#sorry) Backman takes Louisa and Ted on, both grieving the loss of ‘their person’ – Louisa’s foster-home buddy Fish and Ted of course, having lost the artist.

I bookmarked many many pages in this book… such is the pure joy and brilliance that is Backman’s writing. I don’t know if the original is in Swedish and translated or whether he writes in English. He seems to effortlessly imbue beauty into his phrasing:

The following day, autumn would tear September out of the exhausted hands of summer…. p 145

And…

Behind them the rain and wind took their whole childhood and disappeared. p 290

There’s also a strong reflection of the impact art (creativity and beauty) can have on others. Here of course it’s reflected in the artist’s work and the book is littered with references… ‘Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people.’ (p 221)

As an adult, the artist would be told that great artistry is something that has to find its way out of a person, but for him it was something that needed to find its way in. Because for him, art was love. Grief. A story. p 96

And there are the more tragic underpinning themes around death and around violence.

What I hate most isn’t that people die. What I hate most is that they’re dead. That I’m alive, without them. p 223

I obviously adored this book and although I perhaps felt it was a little anticlimactic, it’s a beautiful story. One of friendship, love and loyalty.

My Friends by Fredrik Backman was published in Australia by Simon & Schuster.

I won a copy of this book from Good Reading Magazine and for that I am very grateful!