Swedish author Fredrik Backman is back with a book reminiscent of his bestseller A Man Called Ove. Everyone in his intricately plotted novel seems to be in an existential crisis, some afflicted to the point of internally debating suicide. The plot revolves around a parent whose spouse had an affair, leading to the cascading loss of spouse, job, home, and possibly daughters. The “bank robber” is merely trying to get enough money to meet the rent and keep the children. Unfortunately, banks in this town are going cashless— the bank robbery is a failure, with the would-be robber dashing across the street to escape police, bolting up to the top floor of an apartment building, where an apartment viewing is in progress, waving a pistol. Assuming they are hostages, this nervous group of potential apartment bidders reveal themselves to each other in this unusual situation. The two policemen called to the scene, Jim and Jack, are father and son, another unusual scenario. Some characters have conjoined histories, of which they are initially unaware. Some characters choose to entangle their futures. All are at anxious choice points in their lives, catalyzed by the chance crisis. Backman is masterful in plotting, so the touchpoints never feel contrived, but natural and surprising. Reactions feel genuine. Much dark humor weaves its way through the story, enhancing the truth, and preventing a maudlin tone.

Loss of life either due to illness or suicide is a key element of various characters’ trauma, often complicated by complex relationships. The wife and mother of the police officers, a priest whose work frequently took her far from her family, dies several years before the present story. A quote from her, spoken to her son when he was a child, captures an important theme, our conflicting feelings of powerlessness and responsibility to save people in our lives,

“Jack asked his mom one evening how she could bear to sit beside people when they were dying, in their final hours, without being able to save them…. Then she held his hand tightly and said, “We can’t change the world, and a lot of the time we can’t even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to … be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”

Living with our failures, cherishing our small successes, remembering to keep our relationships connected, loving, and strong, even when kicked around by life— just getting through each day often feels like an exhausting ordeal. Backman’s balanced combination of humor and poignancy is the key to the genuine truth he reveals. This theme of loss feels very close to the author, and he handles the material masterfully.

This novel stands next to Ove as another treatise on loss, and the struggle for meaning and regeneration. This is without doubt one of the best novels of 2020. So timely, considering many experiencing random, painful loss at this time.