The narrator in Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman (translated from Swedish by Neil Smith) tells us variously that the story is about a bank robbery, a hostage drama, idiots, a bridge, and begins many chapters with “the truth is” – but often, it isn’t, or it’s not the complete truth. The main plot line is the perpetrator of a bank robbery, fleeing the police, takes hostages in an apartment. Except it wasn’t a bank robbery, because it was a cashless bank, and the eight hostages weren’t really hostages. And somehow the bank robber who was trapped in the apartment disappears. The story is funny, kind, and poignant, and really it’s the stories of the characters, revealed, layer by layer, until, by the end, we know not only what really happened that day, but that the “idiots” are endearing and painfully human people. As the narrator says in the last chapter: “The truth? The truth about all this? The truth is that this was a story about many different things, but most of all about idiots. Because we’re doing the best we can, we really are.” Here’s what Kirkus Reviews says:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/fredrik-backman/anxious-people/
