Love, Life, and Bank Robbery: A Review of Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

(Review_

By Tahj Galberth

What do you get when you combine a bank robber with a cashless bank?

Well, you get an incompetent bank robber. Add similarly incompetent cops and a group of hilariously unruly hostages, and you get a story that will have you on the floor, either laughing or crying. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, published in Sweden in 2019 with the English translation published two years later, is a comedic novel that initially disguises itself as a crime fiction.

We open in a small Swedish town, where after failing to rob a bank, the perpetrator stumbles into an apartment open house, holding the realtor and prospective buyers hostage. But, when cop duo Jack and Jim manage to get into the apartment, the robber has disappeared. Even stranger, each hostage interviewed seems to be withholding information on the criminal's whereabouts. The police are left to try to solve the mystery in the face of uncooperative witnesses. Said witnesses include a young sapphic couple, Julia and Ro, who are looking for the perfect place to raise their first child.

Anna-Lena and Roger, an older couple who describe themselves as “sharks”, buying and flipping apartments for profit. Zara, a wealthy banker who goes from viewing to viewing in an attempt to connect with her humanity. Estelle, an eighty-seven-year-old woman with a bashful demeanor and unclear intentions, and a mystery man hiding in the bathroom, wearing a plush bunny head. As the story progresses, it delves further into each character, detailing the experiences that lead them to this very moment. This group of what were initially strangers bond, as they realize their situation may not be as dangerous as it seems.

Anxious People forces the reader to confront the reality that bad decisions never happen in a vacuum. In fact, those decisions could be the very thing that makes us human. Backman is an author that excels at characterization. Since his debut novel A Man Called Ove, Backman has continued to hone his creative style, with a narrative that almost come across as a personal journal. Characters’ thoughts and actions are described as though they wrote the book themselves, passing the manuscript from person to person. With caveats that question the root of human behavior and off kilter dialogue the evokes the humorous and uncomfortable feeling of meeting for the first time, Anxious People is a must read for anyone looking to shift their perspective on themselves and others.