Welcome back to Books with Cause. Let’s dive into my next review.
Let me introduce you to my friends. Let me buy you things, let me in your head.
No. Wait. Sorry. That’s a Stereophonics song. Following on from the theme of my last review, this also seemed like an ideal opportunity to check out the work of another author I hadn’t tried before. This time came the turn of Fredrik Backman. The Swedish author who is perhaps best known for his novel A Man Called Ove, which was adapted into a movie with Tom Hanks, where Ove became Otto. I haven’t seen the film or read the book. Instead, my first venture into the world of Backman is My Friends.
Louisa is seventeen and has had a troubled life. She never really knew her parents and grew up in a foster home. The only person she really cared about was her friend, Fish, who also lived in the foster home but had to move out when she turned eighteen. It’s suggested that Fish took her own life just before the beginning of this book.
As well as that, Louisa is a very talented artist. When the book opens, she’s attending a gallery where her favourite painting ever is going up for auction. A painting of three friends sat at the end of a pier, enjoying their summer break from school. But most people don’t even notice the three friends on the pier. They think the painting is just a depiction of the sea. Louisa hates those people because they don’t understand art.
Louisa’s life takes an unexpected turn when she crashes – literally – into a homeless man in the alleyway behind the gallery. The man turns out to be the artist who painted her favourite picture. The next day, the artist dies, and Louisa meets his friend, Ted, who gifts her with the painting. With nowhere else to go, Louisa joins Ted on a train journey back to the artist’s hometown to scatter his ashes.
This story takes place at two times. The first is in the present with Louisa and Ted on the train. Through the course of the train journey, Ted takes Louisa and us back eighteen years in time to when Ted and the artist were at school together with their friend Joar. The artist is sometimes referred to as C Jat but is otherwise only known as the artist. We are only told his actual name towards the end of the book. And I won’t give it here.
This is a book packed full to the brim of nostalgia. The story that Ted tells Louisa is one about that one summer you spend with your friends. The summer you think will never end. I’d like to think we’ve all had a summer like that. I know I have. This is a story about love. Love between friends as well as romantic love that just didn’t happen. It’s a story about sexuality, acceptance, and finding your people.
My Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars)
