Book Review of “Anxious People: A Novel”

Charlestown resident Chilton Knudsen will review Anxious People: A Novel by Frederik Backman [New York: Washington Square Press 2021; 2019] on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 7 PM in the Auditorium.

Several years ago, in a June Book Review presentation, I introduced Charlestown to Frederik Backman, a Swedish author.  Backman’s first full-length novel, A MAN CALLED OVE, has recently been made into a well-regarded movie, titled A MAN CALLED OTTO, starring Tom Hanks. You can find it on Netflix.

I have been fascinated with this author, who is Swedish, perhaps

because my late husband Mike was Scandinavian (Danish). There is something about the Nordic outlook on life:  one part irony, one part dark humor, one part poetry, and one part tenderness.  I am proud to bring to Charlestown, in this June review, another novel by this same author.

There is something about the title ANXIOUS PEOPLE which simply reaches out its arms and gets our attention.  According to experts, anxiety is the daily diet of many of us in this season in the human pilgrimage.

ANXIOUS PEOPLE has an unlikely and creative story line.  A bank robber with a failed bank robbery flees to a nearby apartment building.  He finds his way into the midst of an Open House with a number of attendees present.  He holds these Open House attendees hostage, and the story unfolds from this point. Those attending include a variety of people, from children to elders to a lesbian couple pregnant with their first child.  During the time people are living as hostages, secrets are told, anxieties are multiplied, authenticity is revealed and bonds develop.

Backman is eloquent and pointed in recounting the realities of the human condition, and he develops with acuity and power the dialogue amongst the hostages. This is the type of novel which affords the reader the sense that the author is working out some personal concerns in a fictionalized narrative.  Backman, in all his interviews and publicity, is candid about his own struggle with anxiety and panic disorder.  His excellent skills as a story-teller, coupled with his own personal journey with anxiety, make this more than another book on the shelf.  Reading this book provides a window into the human condition, made more vivid by the unique fictional context of a hostage situation, in which the author locates this novel.  Truly, the author has set a literary context in which masks come down and truth emerges.

Chilton R Knudsen