My Friends by Fredrik Backman

I'm having an enforced rest from working my way through Paul Scott's Raj Quartet because I couldn't find book three when I went to the library on Wednesday. I picked this one up because it's by the same author as the A Man Called Ove, and that was one of those books that has stuck with me, so it seemed like a safe bet.

Fredrik Backman has quite a distinctive writing style as he manages to deal with the darkest of subjects with a light touch that somehow doesn't diminish the impact. His books are translated from Swedish, and the dialogue flows well without losing that directness that I associate with nordic people. My Friends is set in an unnamed town on the coast of Sweden, and it neatly blends the stories of a group of people who were teenagers twenty five years ago with present day events happening to an eighteen year old called Louisa.

Don't let the thought of so many teenagers put you off. This is no tale of hoodies, fast food and smart phones, more a recognition of how society can let down it's children and shows that some lessons are never learnt. As humans, we are all different, but society expects conformity, so where there are points of difference many people in authority seek to punsh rather than understand. Teenagers seek solace among friends and gravitate towards the people who think as they do and lifetime bonds can be created.

In the group of teenagers who have grown up, one was an artist with extrodinary talent, and thanks to the encouragement and support of the group, he went on to be internationally famous with paintings selling for millions. His most famous painting was of the sea but anyone who took the time to look closely would find a group of friends sitting on the end of a pier laughing because one of them had farted. This has always been Louisa'a favourite painting, and when she meets the artist as a grown man in a dark alley behind a church, they realise that dispite the age gap, they have a lot in common and their stories become linked forever.

The storyline in this book feels more engineered than A Man Called Ove, but it is told with sensitivity and humour and might just make the reader more considerate towards people with some kind of difference. We are all broken in some way or another but sometimes our flaws can become our strengths.

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