Front cover image for Anxious people : a novel

Anxious people : a novel

Fredrik Backman (Author), Neil Smith (Translator)
"Viewing an apartment normally doesn't turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths. First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she's obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live--and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there's Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don't know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can't agree on anything. And there's Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn't really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn't outside parking the car. As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people."--Barnes & Noble website
Print Book, English, 2020
[Barnes & Noble exclusive edition]. Atria books hardcover edition View all formats and editions
Atria Books, New York, 2020
Black humor
341 pages ; 24 cm
9781982169633, 198216963X
1252387271
"Barnes & Noble exclusive"--Cover
Edition statement from Barnes & Noble website
"Additional content exclusively for Barnes & Noble. The Last Round of Golf. A short story by Fredrik Backman."
"Originally published in Sweden in 2019 as Folk med ångest." -- Title page verso
Translated from the Swedish