Read: “Anxious People” by Frederik Backman
I love Fredrik Backman the author as much as I love his books. I love his characters as if they were my circle of family and friends…my people.
The author has shared that he suffers terribly from anxiety and depression, and has had at least one breakdown during the writing of every book he has written. He tells himself “this is the end of my career, no one is going to get this”. He never knows what will work - at times he doesn’t know what he is doing.
Backman has let it be known that depression and anxiety could be the source for his writings. His books are driven by his characters who all have stories to tell that unravel slowly revealing sadness, joy, fear, love, highs, lows, comedy, and tragedy. He doesn’t really have a “writing process.” He goes by “write what you can.” He thinks fast and he writes fast. He doesn’t sit down and write 300 words. He sits down and writes 10,000 words. As he explains it, “ you create your own universe that you can step into, where things make sense or where you can, in my case, try to put words onto a feeling. I would assume if you play the cello night after night, once in a while you’ll look up and meet the eyes of someone in the crowd and see a stranger feels the same thing. It’s like an extension cord: If I switch the lights on over here, it will go on at the other end. That’s what I’m looking for when I write.”
I love how Backman explains his thinking process. It works. That is why his books are insanely popular. It works because his characters resonate with most of us - ordinary people who suffer with everyday anxiety - mundane anxiety. He puts a piece of himself into each of his characters. He takes a look at the character’s flaws or most annoying behaviors. He looks for the smallest thing in common he has with that character. Then he spends time defending that person and we, the readers, end up empathizing with and most likely loving that character when we finish reading the last page. (and we are probably crying….audibly)
I listened to an interview with the author telling the story of how Anxious People came to be. He wanted to write about anxiety, but not about people in an extreme situation. “Normal people living with anxiety and trying to cope, people who are feeling like ’I’m just trying to get through the day here’.”
A few years ago, Backman and his wife were apartment hunting in Sweden where every apartment is an open house. There are 2 available dates to see each one, there are about 50 people in the apartment looking at one time, it’s a competitive environment, you have to decide fast, there’s a bidding war between 15 people, you are trapped in this room with all of these strangers, it’s stressful. They’d seen nine apartments, and he was like”I’m good with all of them” So he started looking around the room and thought, “everyone in these places is insecure. Everyone is making a really big life decision.” And he thought to himself, this would be a funny premise - strangers at an open house who are fierce competitors, dislike one another, and find themselves trapped in a hostage situation. Voila! - Anxious People was born and became a Number one New York Times Bestseller, and an International Best seller.
As the story unfolds, a group of quirky, diverse characters are introduced. Eight of them include a Real Estate Agent who is scattered and a bit wacky, and seven prospective buyers - a well-off bank manager suffering from depression, a pregnant lesbian couple struggling with the prospect of parenthood, an 87 year old looky loo neighbor, a long-married couple who flip houses, and a rabbit (I’m not going to spoil him for you) The Agatha Christie like ‘strangers locked in a room mystery’ emerges when a bank robber after failing while trying to rob a cashless bank, flees to an apartment complex to hide and realizes a realtor is in the middle of an apartment showing. The prospective buyers see the mask and a gun and assume they are being held hostage. And then it just keeps getting better. I really just don’t want to spoil it. Let’s just say this tale of a really horrible, really bad day for all these folks ends in a surprisingly heart warming way. (Please keep reading if you don’t get into the characters immediately - that happened to me! I’ve read all of his books now and I know to always keep reading. I am always richly rewarded)
Backman has brilliantly managed to write a laugh-out-loud comedy, a fine and clever mystery, and an insightful, deeply felt character-driven narrative. He starts his novel this way: “This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots.” We are all idiots because being human is “idiotically difficult.”.
