Britt-Marie Was Here

I last encountered Fredrik Backman's work in A Man Called Ove, and with Britt-Marie Was Here, he clearly establishes it that the former was no one-off: the latter is equally as masterful and lovely.

At its most elemental, Britt-Marie Was Here is a book about the human condition. Birtt-Marie is quirky and fastidious and has led a quiet life as a homemaker; now at 60, she's made the first really big decision of her life in looking for a job. The book opens, in fact, with her at an employment agency, displaying her quirks in all their glory, equal parts irritating and endearing. (To the reader. To the employment agency staff, I think it's safe to say endearing is not the adjective of choice.)

Ultimately, Britt-Marie lands a job as caretaker of sorts at the recreation center in a largely neglected community where the soccer-mad children's most fervent wish is to reconstitute the local soccer team, which is easier said than done given that their field has been sold and their coach has recently died. Like Ove, the resulting stew is the best mixture of hilarity and poignancy, peppered sharply with wise observations on life's bittersweet choices.

So much of the book, in fact, is about choice, and what it means to make choices, and the events that  seemingly innocuous choices set in motion, and the interconnectedness of it all. In a year of many great books, this might be the greatest I've read yet.

Five stars.