Ove is the kind of man about whom they say things like “they just don’t make em like that anymore” or “God has thrown away the mould that made such people”. I hear it is being made into a movie starring Tom Hanks in the lead (and I can think of no one better to play Ove).

And as someone who was totally bowled away by not-his-best-work, I had to keep reading.Ī Man Called Ove is probably Backman’s most celebrated novel so far. Here’s the thing, though: When I was reading this book last year, most Backman fans told me this was not his best work. This is one of those wonderful mystery books (if you can even call it that) in which the answer to the mystery itself is immaterial because the beauty of the book is in its characters and their journeys. Who was the robber? How did they escape? Why are the witness testimonies so hilariously useless? And how does this case affect the lives of the officers working on – who just happen to be a father-son duo? Every character’s life seems to somehow be linked to that suicide in a way that has deeply impacted the persons they went on to become. There was also a suicide – decades ago – committed by jumping from a bridge that is visible from this apartment. By the time the police raid the place, the robber has vanished, and none of the colourful testimonies of the seven eccentric-in-their-own-ways people offers any useful leads. The setting of Anxious People is imaginative and gripping: a bank robber on the run from law holds seven people hostage at an apartment showing. The fact that I had little to add to the review on the cover was one of the reasons I did not write about it when I first read it. Specifically, the review you see on its cover: The book truly is “funny, compassionate, wise”, and an “absolute joy”. Anxious People is a book that can very well be judged by its cover.

Book review a man called ove