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Anxious People: A Novel by [Fredrik Backman]

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Fredrik Backman

Anxious People: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Fredrik Backman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

58,660 ratings

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Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller

A People Book of the Week, Book of the Month Club selection, and Best of Fall in Good Housekeeping, PopSugar, The Washington Post, New York Post, Shondaland, CNN, and more!

“[A] quirky, big-hearted novel…Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.

Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.

Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.

Print length

349 pages
Language

English
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Atria Books
Publication date

September 8, 2020
File size

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Addicts are addicted to their drugs, and their families are addicted to hope.
Highlighted by 6,931 Kindle readers
We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow.
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At the end of your career you’re trying to find a point to it all, and at the start of it you’re looking for a purpose.
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of September 2020: An everyday apartment open house becomes the stage for Backman’s latest novel, when a bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. As the title hints, each member of the group bares his or her own anxieties, not just about the hostage situation, but about their individual lives. Backman is a funny, charming story teller, and Anxious People is a fine showcase for his talents as a writer. There are twists and surprises. There are editorial asides. Beneath it all, there is a deep sense of warmth and empathy. Backman is particularly gifted at creating a community of memorable characters and opening up their mental states to readers. And many readers of Anxious People will in turn reflect on their own anxieties. Ultimately, Backman seems to be telling us that—though it be a messy, ambiguous world we inhabit—we can turn toward one another to find calm and assurance. This is a novel that can, and should, be embraced by anxious people everywhere. –Chris Schluep, Amazon Book Review

Review

“Backman again captures the messy essence of being human...It’s clever and affecting, as likely to make you laugh out loud as it is to make you cry.” —Washington Post

“Backman’s latest novel hits the sweet spot between profoundly insightful and preposterously funny….I hugged this book tightly with a smile on my face and tears in my eyes.” –USA Today

“The perfect balance of heartwarming and heart-wrenching, and Fredrik Backman has a way of simply yet elegantly describing relationships. We can all be idiots, but we’re still all human beings worthy of connection and love.” –NPR

“A brilliant and comforting read.” —Matt Haig, bestselling author of The Midnight Library

“An endlessly entertaining mood booster.” —Real Simple

"This book examines how a shared event can change the course of many lives at once. And if you like strongly drawn characters and a mix of humor and heartbreak, this one's for you.” –The Skimm

"[A] witty, lighthearted romp...Backman charms." —Publishers Weekly

"Wry, wise and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People

“A deeply funny and warm examination of how individual experiences can bring a random group of people together. Backman reveals each character’s many imperfections with tremendous empathy, reminding us that people are always more than the sum of their flaws.” —BookPage

"[A] tight-knit, surprise-filled narrative... the brisk, absorbing action prompts meditation on marriage, parenting, responsibility, and global economic pressures. Comedy, drama, mystery, and social study, this novel is undefinable except for the sheer reading pleasure it delivers. Highly recommended."—Library Journal (starred review)

“Backman’s latest novel focuses on how a shared event can change the course of multiple people’s lives even in times of deep and ongoing anxiousness. A story with both comedy and heartbreak sure to please Backman fans.” —Kirkus Review

“Funny, compassionate and wise...an absolute joy.” —AJ Pearce, author of Dear Mrs. Bird

About the Author

Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and Anxious People, as well as two novellas and one work of nonfiction. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @BackmanLand and on Instagram @Backmansk.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1 1
A bank robbery. A hostage drama. A stairwell full of police officers on their way to storm an apartment. It was easy to get to this point, much easier than you might think. All it took was one single really bad idea.

This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is. Especially if you have other people you’re trying to be a reasonably good human being for.

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. We’re not in control. So we learn to pretend, all the time, about our jobs and our marriages and our children and everything else. We pretend we’re normal, that we’re reasonably well educated, that we understand “amortization levels” and “inflation rates.” That we know how sex works. In truth, we know as much about sex as we do about USB leads, and it always takes us four tries to get those little buggers in. (Wrong way round, wrong way round, wrong way round, there! In!) We pretend to be good parents when all we really do is provide our kids with food and clothing and tell them off when they put chewing gum they find on the ground in their mouths. We tried keeping tropical fish once and they all died. And we really don’t know more about children than tropical fish, so the responsibility frightens the life out of us each morning. We don’t have a plan, we just do our best to get through the day, because there’ll be another one coming along tomorrow.

Sometimes it hurts, it really hurts, for no other reason than the fact that our skin doesn’t feel like it’s ours. Sometimes we panic, because the bills need paying and we have to be grown-up and we don’t know how, because it’s so horribly, desperately easy to fail at being grown-up.

Because everyone loves someone, and anyone who loves someone has had those desperate nights where we lie awake trying to figure out how we can afford to carry on being human beings. Sometimes that makes us do things that seem ridiculous in hindsight, but which felt like the only way out at the time.

One single really bad idea. That’s all it takes.

One morning, for instance, a thirty-nine-year-old resident of a not particularly large or noteworthy town left home clutching a pistol, and that was—in hindsight—a really stupid idea. Because this is a story about a hostage drama, but that wasn’t the intention. That is to say, it was the intention that it should be a story, but it wasn’t the intention that it should be about a hostage drama. It was supposed to be about a bank robbery. But everything got a bit messed up, because sometimes that happens with bank robberies. So the thirty-nine-year-old bank robber fled, but with no escape plan, and the thing about escape plans is just like what the bank robber’s mom always said years ago, when the bank robber forgot the ice cubes and slices of lemon in the kitchen and had to run back: “If your head isn’t up to the job, your legs better be!” (It should be noted that when she died, the bank robber’s mom consisted of so much gin and tonic that they didn’t dare cremate her because of the risk of explosion, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have good advice to offer.) So after the bank robbery that wasn’t actually a bank robbery, the police showed up, of course, so the bank robber got scared and ran out, across the street and into the first door that presented itself. It’s probably a bit harsh to label the bank robber an idiot simply because of that, but… well, it certainly wasn’t an act of genius. Because the door led to a stairwell with no other exits, which meant the bank robber’s only option was to run up the stairs.

It should be noted that this particular bank robber had the same level of fitness as the average thirty-nine-year-old. Not one of those big-city thirty-nine-year-olds who deal with their midlife crisis by buying ridiculously expensive cycling shorts and swimming caps because they have a black hole in their soul that devours Instagram pictures, more the sort of thirty-nine-year-old whose daily consumption of cheese and carbohydrates was more likely to be classified medically as a cry for help rather than a diet. So by the time the bank robber reached the top floor, all sorts of glands had opened up, causing breathing that sounded like something you usually associate with the sort of secret societies that demand a password through a hatch in the door before they let you in. By this point, any chance of evading the police had dwindled to pretty much nonexistent.

But by chance the robber turned and saw that the door to one of the apartments in the building was open, because that particular apartment happened to be up for sale and was full of prospective buyers looking around. So the bank robber stumbled in, panting and sweaty, holding the pistol in the air, and that was how this story ended up becoming a hostage drama.

And then things went the way they did: the police surrounded the building, reporters showed up, the story made it onto the television news. The whole thing went on for several hours, until the bank robber had to give up. There was no other choice. So all eight people who had been held hostage, seven prospective buyers and one real estate agent, were released. A couple of minutes later the police stormed the apartment. But by then it was empty.

No one knew where the bank robber had gone.

That’s really all you need to know at this point. Now the story can begin.
--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B082J5KYG6
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atria Books (September 8, 2020)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 8, 2020
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2331 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 349 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #2,586 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #4 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #17 in Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Literary Fiction
- #19 in Friendship Fiction (Books)

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Fredrik Backman

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Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime, as well as one work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His books are published in more than forty countries. His next novel, Anxious People, will be published in September 2020. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and Twitter @BackmanLand or on Instagram @Backmansk.

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58,660 global ratings

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A Great Book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 22, 2022

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I became a fan of Fredrik Backman's over 5 years ago when my wife insisted I read <u>A Man Called Ove</u>. I didn't want to read that book but she insisted and if you want to read how that happened then you'll just have to go read my review of that book. Since Ove Backman has written several other books, all good and some exceptionally so. I think Backman is a master storyteller and I enjoy the way he weaves his plots and his characters. The manner in which he does this weaving reminds me of Charles Dickens and it is a point of criticism for me with Dickens. The difference between these authors, for me, is that Dickens' cleverness isn't revealed until the climax which I find unrealistic while Backman lets the reader in on the connections as though he and the reader were keeping it a secret from the characters. As for this book I am giving it my rare 5 star WOW rating as it is a charming, amusing, dramatic, reverent and irreverent story about, as the author asserts, idiots.

The story is about a poorly planned, in fact not planned at all, bank robbery by a less than professional criminal. Not surprising the robbery goes in an unexpected direction not considered by the robber, again not surprising. The robber's escape attempt leads across the street and into an apartment showing containing about a half dozen people and a real estate agent and a hostage situation results and the story takes flight from there. The humor involved in this story will, of course, depend on the reader's sense of humor. As I was reading this book the story started to remind me of old Woody Allen movies but as it progressed I was more inclined to view it as reminiscent of Peter Sellers' "Pink Panther" movies. However, as I went even further into the story I discovered less humor and more serious subject matter and I started to see the cinematic style of Woody Allen's more recent work. I haven't immediately thought of a book in cinematic terms like this since I read Mark Helprin's <u>Freddy and Fredericka</u> close to 10 years ago (F&F is a great book and if you haven't read it you should. Go find my review). This book would make a wonderful movie or stage play since almost all the activity takes place primarily in two locations. My wife has also read this book and rated it 5 stars so we are probably going to have fun discussing who to cast in this fantasy film of the future.

Whether this book is ever made into a movie or a play is neither here nor there as this review is about the book. It would be completely wrong to think this book is merely an amusing lightweight novel as it is a full demonstration of Backman's ability to entertain his reader while covering serious issues. In fact the author covers so much ground in this 336 page book that I started making a list of the topics he touches on. My list ran to 17 items before it became distracting and interfered with my appreciation of the book so I stopped. The treatment Backman gives the issues he covers is not extensive as that would have required multiple volumes to achieve. What Backman does achieve is to grab the reader's attention and make them stop and think about the subject illustrated. Isn't that enough? If an author can get his reader to stop and think about an important issue hasn't he done more than most?

The author calls his characters idiots but what they really are are normal people and normal people do idiotic things from time to time in their lives. In the course of this story all the characters reveal their stories and in this way the author introduces us to the varieties of life and the issues and facets of human existence and the stupidity one engages in or encounters in the course of living a normal life and attempting to deal with life's issues. This is another of Backman's exceptional stories and well worth reading.

18 people found this helpful

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P. Sundby

Painfully funny and sweet

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 4, 2022

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I didn't know if I would enjoy this book when I first opened it. It was a book club pick, and I only read it with the intention of being a good sport, since I usually pick books for my turn that the other members wouldn't normally pick up, either. From the opening of the first chapter, I was groaning in annoyance and yet hooked. How dare this author call me out on exactly everything I have suspected about myself and society as a whole right on the first page? As a 40-something with kids who still hasn't figured out her life or how she's supposed to pretend she does, in fact, have things figured out, and who has started to become suspicious about whether anyone else actually has things figured out or has just been either darn lucky or good at faking it... well, this book both painfully hit home and also made me smile.

I loved the way the connections between characters and events were revealed throughout the story. I haven't decided yet if I appreciate the author's method in unwrapping the key plot points, but it was certainly effective at keeping me guessing. It was irritating to be casually told that the narrator neglected to mention something and then have a bombshell dropped in your lap - a few times. However, the tongue-in-cheek delivery felt like the way a mischievous older relative would tell a story or a joke - after a while, you think you have an idea where it's going, and you brace yourself for the punchline, and then - surprise! - they got you with something completely different and just as silly. You roll your eyes and pretend to be angry, but you can't help laughing anyway.

Overall, this book isn't just a long dad joke, though. It's both heartbreaking and heartwarming. It's hopeful, while acknowledging the flaws we all have to work through. It shows us that even though we're all idiots in some way, we're still lovable idiots, and it's okay to just be good enough.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Terry Mooney

If you only read one book read this one

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 6, 2021

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I have read thousands of books and every one by this author. This is the most wonderfuI, amazing, beautiful....just the most. This is not Terry the reviews are in his name because he bought me a Kindle for my birthday ten years ago and left it in his account telling me to buy what I wanted. Thank you Terry. Now read this book. I'll lend you my Kindle. Carole

98 people found this helpful

Rosamund S.

Mixed feelings

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 29, 2020

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I often love reading the work of Frederick Backman, first encountering his world in Grandmother sends her regards. The best thing about this book is the plot, which I think is quite a new venture for Backman but still manages to convey his usual messages and style. Kudos to that! The theme of mental illness and the consequences of that are also quite powerfully conveyed. However, despite some of the heart-rending and heart-warming moments and issues that really hit home for me, I have a couple of issues with this book. Firstly, the storylines and ultimate ending or endings are quite predictable, if you have read enough book by this author. It’s always about dysfunctional family, love and always always death and grief. I wish he would consider writing a book without any mention of death for once in the future, so it wouldn’t get so tedious over the time. Secondly, it gets so bogged down with all the political and ‘diversity’ statement to the point of being an overkill. Sure the author is most probably a fierce advocate for these people, but a story shouldn’t always be about what the author thinks, but how it might reflect the society and what other people actually think. Maybe for once he could leave immigration and stuff like that alone. Or maybe it’s just a Swedish thing, I don’t know. It just feels like everything he says, he is trying to make some sort of statement somehow, and regardless of my views on those issues, I find them to interfere too much with the story. Overall, I would still say that this book, like many of Backman’s books, is worth a read.

60 people found this helpful

Singh, R.

The Stockholmers

Reviewed in India 🇮🇳 on November 12, 2020

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I remember reading A Man Called Ove in 2017 and being smitten by the author’s writing and imagination. I wonder why I didn’t pick up his other books right after that. Anyway, I came across his latest release and decided to order it then and there because I wanted something light, breezy, funny and I knew this author could deliver that to me in a book. The story is set in a small town of Sweden and revolves around the day before New Year’s Eve. After a failed attempt at bank robbery, there is a hostage drama going on in a flat around which the book is set. Following the lives of a host of characters, we witness their sentiments and anxieties evolving with every scene and incident as the plot unfurls. We see their ups and downs, we hear the pain and happiness echoing in their shaky voices, we look at the smallness of life and the immeasurable nature of it as age or time takes control over self. It was funny and a life affirming book. A book that spoke about kindness, and compassion. It is a novel that stops being fiction and speaks closely to us, not in our ears, but to our hearts; how important and beautiful life can sometimes be, even on the worst days. Yes, I have written down praises of this book but I don’t think it is as good as AMCO. I felt the author was ambitious in this book, with too many characters and too many stories. It left little for me to sit with one character and try to know them closely myself. I felt the author telling me all things about life and I don’t like it when an author does that. It begins to seem like a self-help book and I don’t seek that in fiction. I wanted the author simply to show me what lives do these people live. That’s all. However, I do recommend you this book if you are looking for something light and positive. It will put a smile on your face, for sure.

74 people found this helpful

C. Murphy

Was there a point? if there was I missed it

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 1, 2021

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I found this book a chore and can't wait to finish it. I've never written a review of a book I am half way through but I fear this might be one I DNF - the only one ever. The book felt the way I feel about doing cross stitch - going back and forth over the same things over and over again with tiny increments of barely perceptible progress at some point. I hated all the characters - that was probably intended. I found all of their 'human condition' issues tedious and uninteresting. I would not call most of them anxious people; sociopathic maybe, borderline personality disorders and psychotics but not just a bunch of jolly, common and garden anxious folks 'and here's why'. The policemen were slapstick - their interviews felt like the author's fantasy of what writing a comic strip would be like. Completely unrealistic - their interviewees were all rude in exactly the same way. All exactly the same passive aggressive, dismissive and sarcastic. What are the odds? the police suspected one or more of them helped (or was) the perpetrator so they would all be suspects and treated as such. I have no idea what kind of story the author intended this book to be or what point he was making. I've read a few of his books and they were pretty good, tight story lines and well written. This one has childish dialogue and endless repetition - I am not sure I have enough life left to invest in finishing it.

21 people found this helpful

Rebecca

Strong Story with Message ﹗

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 1, 2021

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This was such a gorgeously written story, with such a strong and important message. I'm really struggling to come up with the right words for this review. I don't think this book will ever leave me.

The main things I got from this story was love can make you do idiotic things, and you can never surely know what's happening in someone's life and how they really feel unless you talk to one another.

All of the characters here bonded over their life stories, choices, differences and similarities and although the situation was strange and stressful, the kindness in these strangers was absolute. I really cant praise this book enough. I think I'm going to have a long lasting book hangover with this one!

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