A Faithful Presence
A Review of
My Friends: A Novel
Fredrik Backman
Hardcover: Atria Books, 2025
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Reviewed by Lindsey Cornett
In May of last year, Fredrik Backman gave a speech in honor of Simon & Schuster’s centennial. In it, he talks about the parts of his personality not particularly suited to being a public figure. He explains why (much to the dismay of his agent) he generally avoids speaking in front of crowds and says the following: “My brain and I, we are not friends. My brain and I, we are classmates doing a group assignment called ‘life,’ and it’s not going great.”
In My Friends, Backman’s seventh novel and twelfth published work, the narrator echoes those same thoughts, but about a middle-aged man named Ted. “…Ted and his brain are not friends, they’re classmates…” By the time we come to those words, the reader has journeyed with Ted through two-thirds of the book and seen the ways his anxiety and self-consciousness cause trouble. Because I immediately recognized those words from Backman’s speech (which I had already watched on YouTube and passed along to friends and family), I wondered if My Friends is Backman’s most autobiographical novel.
I am a big fan of Fredrik Backman (as you might have guessed by the fact that I watch YouTube videos about him). That said, I had a moment of hesitation when this book was first announced, because I found the title less-than-captivating. I thought perhaps we might get some run-of-the-mill exploration of middle age friendships. Backman’s titles have certainly been simplified over the years (compare 2021’s The Winners to 2013’s My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry), but My Friends is still the least dynamic name in the catalogue. And while this novel is certainly a story about friendship, the title doesn’t do much to hint at the many layers of the story and the richness contained within. I’m happy to say my ambivalence about the title does not carry over to the rest of the book.
My Friends is perfectly in keeping with Backman’s other works in tone, theme, and style. It is a story about neighbors and intergenerational relationships. It is a book about grief, abuse, and trauma. And it is, ultimately, about hope and the triumph of loving relationships above all else. My Friends is, also, about art—perhaps another reason why it feels likely to be more autobiographical than Backman’s other work.
My Friends relies fairly heavily on metanarrative, more than I recall in any of his previous novels. Backman also relies on a bit of bait-and-switch. Chekov’s gun is definitely going to go off, but just never at the time or in the hands of the character you’ve been led to expect. This will feel familiar to readers of The Beartown trilogy, but I wonder if those who are new to Backman’s work might find it annoying. But because I have read his entire catalogue, I have learned to trust Backman’s storytelling implicitly, and this book proved yet again that he deserves the reader’s trust. As I read, I knew things would turn out differently than I assumed at the beginning, but I knew the destination would be worth the journey.
The story begins with Louisa, an 18 year-old aging out of the foster care system, whose best (and only) friend has recently died. Everything she owns fits in a backpack. “[Other girls] knew who they were, because they had families, they had inherited a belief that they belonged in every room they walked into. Louisa felt like a rat born in a laboratory.” And though her talent has yet to be recognized by any of the adults who have moved into and out of her life, Louisa is an artist. Then, at the beginning of the novel, she has a chance encounter with the artist of her favorite painting.
“The artist,” (the only name he’s given through most of the book) is near death after a long illness, and he notices something special in Louisa. He makes a final dying wish, asking his friend Ted to ensure Louisa becomes the owner of the painting she loves so much. This launches Ted and Louisa on an adventure together, traveling by train across the country to visit an art curator who can help Louisa manage the painting’s value appropriately. As the train travels on, Ted tells Louisa the story of his friendship with the artist, their two other friends, and the life-changing summer when the painting was created.
It’s a hard book to summarize, because it meanders and is richly layered. Chapter 19 begins by saying, “It’s so strange, [Ted] thinks, how we choose to tell a story. We hardly ever start at the beginning.” Indeed. As Ted and Louisa get to know one another, their stories jump around in time, leaping forward and looping back around again. They take a circuitous path in the telling, not unlike the train they are riding through the countryside (presumably of Backman’s native Sweden, though not necessarily). Along the way, we get to know our protagonists’ friends, their families (or lack thereof), their grief, and their hopes.
Ted, the artist, and their friends, Joar and Ali, grew up together surrounded by darkness—they lived in an under-resourced community, weren’t cared for well by their families (in some cases enduring significant abuse and neglect) and didn’t have much hope for their futures. But Joar recognized the artist’s talent and decided to do everything in his power to help the artist get out. And he did. The painting at the center of the story, created at Joar’s urging and called “The One of the Sea,” catapulted the artist into success and fame, and the artist became the kind of figure whose work hung in museums and sold at auction. It’s in Backman’s reflections on the artist’s success and struggle that we read what I imagine are some of Backman’s own personal experiences.
Ted and the artist both seem to represent different parts of Backman’s own story. “Fame was instantaneous and merciless,” he writes, “certainly not something for sensitive boys, the artist had taken the world, but now it took him…Everyone he met told him they loved him, hardly anyone survives that. He was photographed for magazine covers, and lay on the floor of expensive hotel suites at night, breathing through his panic on the phone with Ted. The artist was an observer, he couldn’t bear to be observed, the world always gets those mixed up.” We also learn that when Ted was working as a high school teacher, he was violently attacked by a student, in an experience that seems to mirror Backman’s own experience of being shot during a bank robbery (a story he recounts in his short work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World.) Later, Ted reflects, “That’s the worst thing about having a vivid imagination: it works in all directions.”
I don’t think this work quite qualifies as literary fiction, but it is somehow also a step above most pop fiction. I underlined and highlighted so many passages and sentences, because Backman has a way with words. As a writer, I was jealous of phrases like, “…so close together that only dreams could fit between their bodies,” and “…the artist’s whole body was shaking so badly that if he had been holding milk, it would have been butter.” Backman also deserves credit for how he developed Ted and Louisa’s relationship throughout the story. A wealthy middle-aged man and an unrelated, orphaned teenage girl would not normally be friends. Louisa jokes about the possibility that Ted could be kidnapping her, but the reader knows that Ted is completely trustworthy. Their relationship never seems the least bit problematic or creepy. Ted and Louisa become exactly what the other needs: Louisa needs to be cared for, and Ted needs to be pushed. And they both need space to grieve the deaths of their best friends. As is the case with all of Backman’s novels, grief brings together a surprising, unlikely family.
And that all brings us back to the title: My Friends. In this novel, we come to a deeper understanding that true friendship is not about shared interests or experiences, about holding similar dreams for the future, or about avoiding the darkness. Instead, friendship—love—is about presence and companionship in the midst of darkness. It’s why for so many of us, like Louisa, art becomes deeply personal. Whether paintings or music or novels, we hold these pieces in our hearts as we move through life. In My Friends, “The One of the Sea” is the only figure present in both Louisa and Ted’s pasts and presents. Art becomes a faithful presence in their lives, just as Backman’s catalogue has become in my own.
Lindsey Cornett
Lindsey Cornett is a loud talker, obsessive coffee drinker, and lover of the written word who lives in downtown Indianapolis with her scientist husband, 3 kids, and crazy Bernedoodle. Most days, you’ll find her wrangling the dog, managing snacks, reheating her coffee, and trying to savor as much joy and gratitude as she can in the middle of these very full days. Lindsey writes a monthly-ish email newsletter about the intersections of faith, community, and curiosity at lindseycornett.substack.com.
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