Dear Lit Fanatics,
Wow! I just finished reading the powerful, realistic fiction book titled Anxious People: A Novel by Swedish author Fredrik Backman. I think Mr. Backman must have been a psychology/psychiatry major in college because he always speaks to some aspect of humanity in all of his books. In Anxious People, the book starts in an unusual manner. The reader gets little vignettes of the lives of various people who eventually, in the course of day, are all going to find themselves in a highly charged situation. They are going to come together and share their grievances, secrets, passions, and longings and find connection. More than that, they are going to have to consider the human condition of desperation and the drastic measures it can prompt a person to take even if the actions cause no one harm. Over time this group of people will be forced to make a group decision of whether a person they don't know deserves a second chance at redemption.
Initially, the reader is informed that a woman who was having difficulties in her marriage left her husband, but she still wanted to obtain partial custody of her two girls. Her husband's divorce attorney threatens to take her girls away from her if she cannot provide a stable, safe home. The problem is that this mother cannot earn enough money to pay rent on a residence where both she and her daughters can live. She gets to a point where she sees no other recourse but to grab a gun, which she thinks is fake but is actually a real pistol, and she goes to rob a bank asking for the exact amount of rent she needs, no more and no less. Interestingly, she does not realize the bank she attempts to rob is a cashless bank so her mission is not achieved. Before the police arrive, the mom runs across the street to a block of apartments and runs inside the first residential door that is open only to find that the apartment is for sale and people are there viewing the apartment in order to potentially buy it. This bank robber/mom is now holding the apartment viewers as hostages.
This is the point in the book where eight people inside the apartment suddenly get to know one another given the circumstances in which they find themselves. At the same time a father and son who are both police officers in this small town are attempting to respond to the hostage crisis once the bank robber makes a demand for pizza and fireworks. The father and son "tolerate" one another and have remained living in the same residence after their wife/mom dies and their daughter/sister has been lost to the ravages of drug addiction. Additionally, one of the hostages is a banker who does not like her job even though she can do it quite well. She is also struggling with suicidal thoughts and has carried an envelope from a man who jumped to his death ten years prior, but she has never been able to open the envelope and read it. She also witnessed one of the police officers, who is currently responding to the hostage crisis, when he helped her present-day psychologist, who at age nine intended to commit suicide by jumping from a bridge. The police officer in his youth is the individual who kept the young psychologist from committing suicide. And the connections and commonalities among eight hostages and a bank robber continue to be revealed throughout the remainder of the book.
Essentially, the book is about the interconnectedness of people. It is also about how as a society we come across people each day and we do not know what is happening in their lives. What we say or do may impact the actions that person does or does not take. In a pandemic like we are living in today, people are especially anxious for all sorts of reasons. Would it not make for a better world if we all were a bit more understanding and considerate toward people we meet whether they be a relative, an acquaintance, or stranger? It's easy in this social media obsessed age to get wrapped up in ourselves: our problems, our anxieties, our wants, our needs, etc. Take time to recognize and lend some thoughtfulness to those you meet along your life journey. You never know what a difference you might make in that person's life or how much you might have in common or in what ways you might be connected in the future. This is one fabulous book by a quite insightful author.
Till my next review or reflection,
Grace (Amy)
No comments:
Post a Comment