"My Friends" by Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman's "My Friends" is the best book I've read in ages. It's a story that's simultaneously heartbreaking and life affirming, devastating and beautiful. Sometimes it's even funny. It's Backman at the top of his craft. 

I made it to page three before marking a passage I particularly enjoyed. The scene is an old church turned art gallery where a painting is being auctioned off. A teenage girl stands in the midst of the potential bidders. She looks around, contemplating the crowd and listening in on their conversations. A coiffed woman comes back from the bathroom, horrified that there is graffiti on the walls. "But," someone ventures, "Do you think the graffiti is part of the exhibition? Do you think it's....art?" The women rush to their husbands to get their opinions. "Is there a price tag?" one asks. The women breathe a sigh of relief. Without a price tag, it's clearly not art. Crisis of taste averted.  

The collectors are there to bid on "The One of the Sea." It's blue and expensive. Louisa, our young art lover, is the only one who's noticed that in the midst of all that blue there's a pier on which three kids are sitting and dangling their feet over the water. In fact, it's that detail that captivated her when she saw a postcard of the painting years earlier. With just a few brushstrokes, the artist somehow managed to capture the deep friendship those teenagers shared. Louisa has carried that postcard around with her ever since, looking at it when she needs to have faith in the world (which is quite often). As the tale progresses, we learn the stories of those young friends (including the now dying artist) and of Louisa and her own best friend who died way too young. I was torn between speeding through the book and savoring every page. 

The story behind "The One of The Sea" was a throughline in the novel. It would take way too much space to explain how the artist (who's almost always called that) came into possession of his own painting after the auction and bequeathed it to Louisa. While the two had just met, the artist could immediately tell that she was one of them. She resisted accepting the gift. Its value was one consideration, but the more important reason was that she didn't feel worthy of owning it. Ted, one of the four friends, wanted to explain to her that the artist "didn't give her the painting because it was his inheritance; he gave it to her because he realized she was the inheritance. Art is what we leave of ourselves in other people. But he doesn't quite know how to say that." 

Fredrik Backman

And now it's time for a quick foray into the characters' backstories. Ted, the artist and their two friends came from families with little means and, except for Ted, families for whom raising children was not what I'd call their strong point. Louisa and her friend met in a foster care home where they laid awake at night in their makeshift beds with knives to protect themselves. It was the marks these similar upbringings left on the artist and Louisa that he immediately recognized in her. They weren't broken, exactly, but the world had done its best to do so. 

What moved me most about the story was the way the friends always supported one another. When Ted or the artist or their buddies Ali or Joar faced a difficult situation, one of them always said, "I love you and I believe in you." It sounds like a strange thing for one teenager to say to another. But when you've found your people and one of them needs you, what words could better express that you're there for them and have faith in them no matter what? Friends, as they say, are the family you choose. Fast forward to the present, when Louisa and Ted have been thrown together to figure out what to do with the painting. Suffice it to say that a road trip for the ages ensues. While they kind of drive each other crazy, it doesn't take them long to choose each other to be part of their own families. 

I loved "My Friends" from the first to the last sentence. Read it. And if you haven't read Backman's "Beartown" trilogy, I recommend that as well. Don't be put off by the fact that it might be characterized as "hockey literature." It's a life story. And if you want to cheat a little bit, the first book in the trilogy is streaming on HBO Max. 

Happy reading!