I can’t believe many publishing companies rejected this novel’s manuscript at the onset. So much for the publishers!

As to the novel, as this author’s strongest point is characterization, this story shines most brilliantly. The book is like a very valuable artifact offered to the readers as wrapped in dull paper. In the beginning, therefore, a reader wonders why this author wrote about such a disagreeable old man, but then, when you open the packaging what is inside is priceless.

Ove Lindahl is a 59-year-old grumpy man living in Sweden in a townhouse neighborhood. As the story progresses, the reader finds out that this man is a gem and has a very soft heart. It is that soft heart that is laden with grief, the grief of his wife Sonja’s death, that makes him want to kill himself. Then, every time Ove attempts to kill himself something happens and he is unsuccessful. So much so that, his repeated attempts after a while seem ironic and even funny.

When Ove was a young child, his mother died. Then, when he was a teen, his father--who was a mechanic at the train company--was hit and killed by a train. Ove meets his wife Sonja on a train and their initial relationship is strange and comical, but Ove is pleasantly surprised when Sonja accepts him.

Ove is also industrious and very handy in fixing things. When two men from the council “The Whiteshirts” come to the door to declare his home needed to be demolished, Ove fixes the house. He also saves two of his neighbors from a fire.

Ove is extremely cranky and has very specific idiosyncrasies, such as he has always driven Saabs and if anyone else drives another make of a car, he looks down upon that person and even stops being friends. He also has given himself the job of inspecting the events of his neighborhood. Every morning he walks on the street looking for misplaced anything. He also distrusts the people who work from home and is suspicious of the Internet.

One day, to his initial disgust, a family move in next door. It is the Iranian Parvaneh and her husband Patrick and their two daughters, Sepideh and Nazanin. Parvaneh not only saves Ove from one of his suicide attempts but she also becomes an important character in the story. In fact, after many story events, when Ove is taken to the hospital, he lists Parvaneh as his next of kin.

What is such an important idea in this book is the role of the main character’s past playing the greatest role in his present. What adds and fortifies this idea is the way the story is told by going back and forth in time.

Speaking for myself, I don’t care much for the back-and-forth style of storytelling because in some lesser authors’ hands this tool ends giving terrible results, but not with Backman. He uses it to the best advantage of his stories.

There are so many pluses in this book such as the sense of community, loving someone fully, the unexpected humor in tragedy, the disabling power of grief and loss, hidden virtues that look like vices on the outside, the humanity in every person, even a cat, and many more such things.

I can’t praise this book enough and I am very happy that I was lucky enough to have read it.

enjoying reading it and meanwhile admiring the author's characterizations and storytelling.

everything.

warm inside.

is Fredrik Backman (born 2 June 1981), a Swedish columnist, blogger and writer. He is the author of A Man Called Ove (2012), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (2013), Britt-Marie Was Here (2014) Beartown (2016), and Us Against You (2018).

I totally enjoyed it. It is wonderfully written in a quirky way, and I am a fan of Fredrik Backman.

I think a movie of it has been made, also, but I don't like movies much. Even if I see the movie later, I am glad I read the book first.

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Created Sep 19, 2018 at 7:04pm • Submit your own review...