Anxious People: A tale of love and human connections

Anxious People by Fredrik Backman is another masterpiece, just like his epic Pièce de résistance ‘A man called Ove’.

This book is a celebration of nuances of human emotions and their depth. What seems like a run-of-the-mill crime thriller, very soon pivots into a hostage drama with quite an unusual turn of events.

It has a very unusual assemblage of hostages, and the book ends with a solution that works for all the characters in mysterious ways.

The eclectic characterisation

There is the Bank robber who is trying to rob a cashless bank for 6500 Kronos. The bank robber wants that money to pay the rent for the apartment so that the Bank robber’s daughters don’t leave.

London is a bratty young teenager working in the bank as a receptionist. She is smug and has an ‘I don’t care’ attitude. She even goes on to call the Robber dumb for trying to steal a cashless bank, and more so for trying to steal just 6500 Kronos.

Then there is the older couple Anne-Lena and her Handy husband Roger. There is another eccentric older woman Estelle talking about her dead husband Knut as if he’s alive and is parking his car by the building right now.

Julia (Jules) and Ro are married to each other, and Jules is clearly pregnant.

Zara is a high-profile banker who has seen way too much in her life and is trying to process a lot of that information with the help of Linda her therapist.

A father-son duo, Jim, and Jack who’re both cops and are on the case investigating the bank robbery. There is a lot of tension between the pair and the only thing that unites them is a woman they both love dearly, Jim’s wife and Jack’s mother, but she is dead!

There are also a couple of wildcard entries, and revealing them would give away too much of the plot. Read the book to find out.

The Plot

The story opens with the Bank robber trying to rob a bank. But due to the general idiocy of the idea or for the lack of any planning it immediately spirals into a nightmare for the Bank robber.

The robber storms into the bank and demands a rather unusual amount of money, 6500 Kronos. This takes even the bank receptionist, London by surprise. She’s unfazed by the commotion and does not even believe that the gun is real.

The bank robber then realizes that the bank is cashless. So, the Bank robber runs to the nearest building and plans to stay hidden in one of the apartment complexes. But tough luck again for the Bank robber, as it turns out that the apartment was having an open house and there were a bunch of people there who came for the apartment viewing.

Meanwhile, someone from the bank reported the attempted robbery and the police surrounded the apartment where the Bank Robber held hostages.

What follows is a chaotic interaction between the bunch of eclectic and eccentric people. Slowly the group starts to interact with each other and with the bank robber, secrets are revealed, connections are formed, hearts are broken. Eventually, a new sense of collective and mutual consensus is reached. The unusual group of people finally takes a decision, one that works for all of them.

The story then revolves around how that collective decision ties up all the hostages, the bank robber and the two cops, and the therapist into one complex and interconnected web of connections.

The Narrative

The narrative switches from one character to another giving the author enough room to develop all his character’s backstory and adding a lot of nuance to the plot.

Furthermore, this shift in perspective also helps the readers understand how different characters view the same event differently through the lens of their own experiences and opinions.

The narrative also goes on to explain a very fundamental human tendency, ‘to form strong bonds when the conditions are stressful or harsh’

Thoughts and feelings

You can’t help but relate with the characters in the book. The rebel son, the overprotective parent, the smug teenager, the arrogant older person, and the hormonal pregnant woman, we have been almost all of them at some point in our lives.

The way Fredrik weaves the narrative with the help of these disconnected individuals and as a result form a very deep and rich tapestry of human emotions and bonds.

It also explores the lengths that human beings are willing to go and all the stupid things they are willing to do for the people they love.

The insecurities and vulnerabilities of all the characters are explored in detail and that is what makes this book worth the read.

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