Britt-Marie Was Here - Fredrik Backman

I remember stumbling across a movie trailer on YouTube one day for the Swedish film A Man Called Ove. At the time, Tom Hanks was even said to be in the process of producing an American remake of the film, but I don’t think that ever happened. Well, as often does happen, my interest in the movie led me to the book (of the same title) from which the Swedish movie is adapted. And that’s how I discovered author Fredrik Backman – plus three or four of my favorite books of the last couple of years.  

 

Backman is a Swedish writer whose books center on some of the quirkiest characters a reader will ever encounter. Luckily for the rest of the world, his five novels have now been translated into 25 languages, including, most thankfully, English. His debut novel, the already mentioned A Man Called Ove (2012), has been followed by My Grandmother Asked Me to Say She’s Sorry (2013), Britt-Marie Was Here (2014), Bear Town (2017), and Us Against You (2018). I wholeheartedly vouch for each of these with the exception of the one I’m yet to read, My Grandmother Asked Me to Say She’s Sorry. Oh, and in order to complete the book-to-movie circle I started with Ove and my discovery of Backman, I should mention that Britt-Marie Was Here has also been adapted into movie form.

 

Britt-Marie is obsessed with order, a place for everything, and of course, everything in its place. She even judges the character of new acquaintances by the way they organize – or don’t organize – their cutlery drawers. Knives, forks, and spoons all have their assigned place, and Britt-Marie doesn’t really trust people who don’t strictly adhere to that rule. In fact, she even extends the “everything in its place rule” to her husband, and when Britt-Marie learns that he has been cheating on her, she decides that her place is no longer at his side.

 

That’s how Britt-Marie ends up, all on her own, working as caretaker of the recreation center in Borg, one of Sweden’s most isolated little towns. Borg is so small – and its economy so depressed – that its dwindling population depends on a general store of sorts that stocks a little of just about everything the closed businesses used to sell. It helps not to be too choosy when shopping in Borg. And unbeknownst to Britt-Marie, the recreation center she is responsible for is already scheduled for demolishment. Until that happens, though, Britt-Marie is going to make sure that it’s the cleanest and most efficiently run recreation center in all of Sweden.

 

Fredrik Backman

Britt-Marie is not what you would call a “people-person.” Her pickiness, combined with an inability to hold her tongue, makes it near impossible for her to make new friends or for her to keep any friends around long enough for them ever to reach the status of old friends. But something strange and unexpected begins to happen when Britt-Marie meets the locals. Strange as they at first seem to her, she starts to like them, and even more surprisingly, they start to like her. But the biggest surprises of all come when Britt-Marie, a woman who knows absolutely nothing about soccer, or any other sport for that matter, agrees to coach the local youth soccer team in their quest to show the neighboring town snobs they can compete with them – even if they do have to practice in a paved parking lot.

 

I experienced Britt-Marie Was Here in audiobook format as read by Joan Walker. If there is a more perfect reader to capture the character, spirit, and inner thoughts of a woman like Britt-Marie, I can’t imagine who that might be. Even better, Walker uses her voice and variable speech patterns to create several other characters who are all immediately recognizable by the individual vocal patterns and voices she assigns to them. The way that Walker reads some of their conversations is laugh-out-loud funny.

 

Bottom Line: Britt-Marie Was Here is one of those stories that can make you laugh as easily as it breaks your heart, and it often does both in quick succession. The joy of watching Britt-Marie blossom into the person she was always capable of being is equaled by the townspeople’s reluctant realization that they have come to love the strange little woman who suddenly bursts into their lives. Fredrik Backman has done it again, and in fact, Britt-Marie Was Here just may be my favorite of the four novels of his I’ve now read. (And that is saying a lot.)