Fredrik Backman’s books are not subtle. Their emotion and their power hit us like a fist to the face. And in his latest novel, “My Friends,” there are literally multiple fists hitting multiple faces.
The story is about many things: the power of great art, the paradox of youth—the cruelty and the joys, the strength of childhood friendships, the horror of abusive parents and teachers, and the transformational nature of love. The characters he shares are all rough, troubled people; not one is polished, urbane, and sophisticated. But we love them just for who they are — down-to-earth teenagers doing the best they can who become adults who do the same.
The story is, in some ways, a tribute to the powerful nature of art. In an interview with the American Booksellers Association, Backman shared that his wife loves art. So the inspiration for part of this book must lie with her influence. Backman said, “In the book, I wrote this line where a nurse turns to a world-famous artist and says: ‘My husband loved your work. We saw some of your paintings in a gallery once. I loved the way he looked when he looked at them.’ That’s from the way I feel about going to museums with my wife. I love how much she loves things.”
That clearly shines through in Backman’s narrative. One of the main characters, Louisa, is seventeen and in foster care. Foster care is not a safe place, and Louisa’s best friend has died shortly after leaving foster care. The two of them had slept together in their foster home clutching screwdrivers as weapons against anyone who would harm them. They were best friends and shared the best and and the worst of their lives. But Backman reminds us that “the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and dark alleys alike.” Louisa is alone now, with only her sketchbook and her drawings for comfort.
Backman plays with the timeline. He introduces us to Louisa when she is seventeen and the others in the story are just shy of forty. They are adults; she is a child just on the cusp of adulthood. But when she runs into the man whose art is central to the story—literally runs into him—the connection is immediate. And the artist’s reaction to their meeting sets up the rest of the story. It’s through Louisa’s eyes that we meet Ted, one of the artist’s best friends, and he becomes the storyteller. Most of the story is about the characters as teenagers, Louisa now and the artist and his friends twenty-five years ago.
The novel is replete with Backmanisms, his irreverent manner of narrating, using sarcasm, talking directly to us, using hyperbole. “They were sweating so much that if they went for a swim, the sea would end up saltier, they were so hot that if they burned themselves on a cigarette, the cigarette would scream.” The novel is an ode to childhood and teenage years when, in Backman’s eyes, certain young adults—but certainly not real adults—see life clearly, suffer from reality, and love fiercely.
The kids in the novel are from a place and from families where nothing was expected; since they were born poor, they would die poor. Their fathers were often drunk, the kids were told they were stupid or worthless. Or in the case of the artist, who was different from others from a very young age, that he should try to be more “normal.” Backman writes, “Because in an ugly place, he was born with so much beauty inside him that it was like an act of rebellion. In a world full of sledgehammers, his art was a declaration of war.”
In addition to the pathos, the heartbreak which is the reality of the lives of the five teenagers in the novel, Backman provides humor. The four friends include Joar, who is the smallest of the group but who has the heart of a lion, and who will fight for what is right with the strength of a gang of thugs. There is Ted, shy and timid; he’s the only one with a home that’s fairly intact, a home where the lights all function and the fridge has food. There is Ali, the only girl in the group of boys, who brings light into their part of the world. She is fearless and brave, loving and determined. And there is the artist, and that’s how Backman refers to him for most of the novel: the artist. Because it’s this teenager who creates a work of art that rocks the world and makes him one of the most famous artists of all time.
And what we realize by the end of the story is that the artist only became famous because of his friends. His friends were the instrument by which he was able to accumulate fame and wealth, but all he really wanted was to go back to their time together, when their friendship was everything to them. To the artist, the money and the wealthy trappings meant nothing. His original work of art, with his friends painted in it, painted during the best time of his life because he had his friends around him, meant everything.
Backman is honest on social media about his struggles with mental health issues. Anxiety and depression, suicide, all these are recurrent themes in his novels. The artist in the novel exemplifies these struggles with his panic attacks and his dependence on pills. “When he was thirty, he was taking pills every day, because no one who loved him was around to look in his backpack anymore.” His friends were more than just friends; they were family, and they were a source of love. I wonder how much of the artist’s character and the artist’s struggles is what Backman feels about his own art, his writing.
The novel takes us to the darkest places that a person might visit, but Backman also teaches us that some people, people who seem a bit different, might have hidden wings. They might be able to soar above the rest of us, rising to heights those of us lacking such appendages will never know. There are so many poignant parts of this story, as there are in all Backman novels, that I often found myself stopping and rereading sentences and paragraphs. I needed to read them over and over to internalize the words and the meaning and the emotions behind the printed letters.
There are twists and unexpected outcomes, but Backman’s brilliance is in presenting us with characters we may not be able to relate to, but whose understanding of the world is as bright and filled with knowledge as the sea that is depicted in the artist’s famous painting. Our hearts break over and over again as we journey with Louisa and Ted and hear their stories, but we also emerge, as they do, stronger because of that trip.
Read Backman’s other books including “Anxious People,” and “The Winners,” the final book in the fabulous Beartown series.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.