A hapless robber tries to stick up a cashless bank (which is apparently very much a thing in Sweden) and winds up holding eight people hostage at a nearby apartment viewing instead. In parallel narratives, Backman tracks both the robber’s pathetic attempt to corral the hostages, and the similarly ineffective police investigation conducted in the aftermath of the incident. The hostages, remarkably, are equally uncooperative in both scenarios. They consist of an older married couple who’ve taken to buying and flipping properties in their retirement, a young lesbian couple expecting their first child, an elderly woman, a cantankerous banker, an annoying cheerful real estate agent, and a mystery man hiding in the bathroom. To save time, each of them are provided by the author with one annoying character trait that they hammer home every single time they speak. The banker is a misanthrope, the older couple are barely hanging on to their marriage, the younger couple are trying to avoid becoming like the older couple, the old woman is sweet but stuck in the past, etc.
The police investigation is conducted by a father-and-son team of detectives. If it feels to you like there is no way that a father and son would be allowed to work together on a case, then I have to tell you that this book is not for you. Jack and Jim are the least professional police officers ever committed to the page, and I’m including all the corrupt and violent ones when I saw that. They, too, bicker and make up constantly, mostly over the father not wanting his son to put himself in danger and the son bristling about it.
They take turns interviewing the hostages, trying to locate the bank robber, who has managed to disappear somehow. The hostages are incredibly unhelpful, more keen to discuss the problems with their relationships or their feelings about politics or anything else besides the events that happened while they were held hostage. Most of this is supposed to be funny. These ridiculous people who can’t even put their petty little problems aside long enough to talk to the police about a serious crime. Ha ha. Of course, the humor dissipates due to the fact that their behavior is not anywhere close to recognizably human.
There is, non-specific spoiler ahead, a reason for this. A rationale for this absurdity that retroactively makes sense of their obfuscation. But that doesn’t overcome the irritation the reader will feel up until that point. It’s like one of those sitcom episodes where the characters are ignoring or being rude to the main character, but only because they’ve planned a surprise party or something at the end of the episode and are trying to throw him off the scent.
Anxious People also turns out to be one of those novels about interconnectedness, how we all wind up playing a part in each other’s stories. This is rather trite in a work of fiction, where of course the author determines the stories. Backman makes it happen by introducing so many unlikely coincidences into the plot that even Charles Dickens would blush.
This is my first time reading a Fredrik Backman novel. I know that his stuff is extremely popular, but Anxious People gives me no clue as to why. It’s thin characters, unfunny jokes, and treacly sentiment are not exactly making me want to check out his other books.