Two books, one author

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry ~ by Fredrik Backman, 2013, (translated by Henning Koch, 2015), literary fiction, 370 pages

Elsa is seven years old and different.  Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy — as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy.  She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend.  At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins.  Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of misfits, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

This story is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove.  It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.  (I really enjoyed reading A Man Called Ove, and that's why I picked up this book in the first place.)

A Man Called Ove ~ by Fredrik Backman, 2015, literary fiction, 368 pages

Meet Ove.  He’s a curmudgeon — the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window.  He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse.  People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.”  But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.  So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul.  All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

Fredrik Backman’s beloved first novel about the angry old man next door is a thoughtful exploration of the profound impact one life has on countless others.