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I like Backman, almost everything I've read that he's written. Some more than others, but all have been well-written and interesting. This one took me back to my initial exposure to him in A Man Called Ove, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Humorous, but also touching and apt in terms of the foibles of humanity.

Anxious People gives us a bank robbery gone bad. Or good, as the case may be. The bank robber ends up with a motley assortment of uncooperative people, in a farcical rendition of how not to take hostages. Or who not to take hostage. The telling is purposefully confusing and a bit disjointed, moving back and forth in time, with teasers along the way. But it all comes together in the end, and the journey is strewn with little gems that are signature Backman, both the humorous and the apropos:

"No one goes to see a psychologist to talk about all the times they weren't hit in the head by a swing as a child. Parents are defined by their mistakes."

"Not that this is in any way a defense of bank robbers, but they can have bad days at work, too. Hand on heart, which of us hasn't wanted to pull a gun after talking to a twenty-year-old?"

And vintage Backman:

"There are simply some things that all normal people understand that you must never under any circumstances do. You mustn't tell lies, you mustn't steal, you mustn't kill, and you mustn't throw stones at birds. we all agree on that.

Except maybe swans, because swans can actually be passive-aggressive little bastards. But apart from swans, you mustn't throw stones at birds. And you mustn't tell lies. Unless...well, sometimes you have to, of course, like when your children ask: "Why does it smell like chocolate in here?.....But you must never kill people. Well, unless they're Hitler. You're allowed to kill Hitler."

Backman can create a sense of someone and an indictment with a single sentence:

"...a woman called Zara. She's somewhere in her fifties, and beautifully dressed in that way that people who have become financially independent on the back of other people's financial dependency often are."

Backman makes me smile, and laugh out loud, and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. And that is just what I needed after some stressful weeks of life. He may shine a light on some of the ugly parts of life, but he does it in such a way that we can stand to look, and even feel good afterwards, as though it was wrapped in invisible hope all along.