My Friends

My Friends by Fredrik Backman
5/6/25; 448 pages
Atria Books 

My Friends by Fredrik Backman is an exceptional, heartbreaking, humorous, very highly recommended story of friendship, art, trust, and finding your people. This is a masterpiece and certainly will be the best book I've read this year, perhaps even over several years. Admittedly, I am a long time admirer of Backman's work but My Friends is a life-list book.

An artist's first painting, “The One of the Sea,” is being sold and eighteen-year-old Louisa needs to see the painting for her own reasons. Her best friend Fish recently died and Louisa knows that the painting isn't about the sea, it's about the small group of friends on a dock in the corner of the painting. Circumstances result into her running from a security guard and crashing into a homeless man in the alley. Only he isn't homeless, he is the artist of “The One of the Sea” who calls himself C. Jat, and he is dying.

In the hospital later the artist tells Ted about Louisa and proclaims "She's one of us!" The us is the group of four friends, the friends in the painting from twenty-five years earlier and the ones he knew at fourteen and fifteen, when he painted “The One of the Sea.” These friends are Joar, Ted, Ali, and the artist. The artist, who had Ted buy his painting back, tells Ted to give the painting to Louisa and this leads to the two embarking on a cross country trip where she learns about the friends and how they saved each other from their bruising home lives and in school.

The dual timeline works perfectly in My Friends. The present day is Louisa and Ted on their trip while Ted tells the story of when they were teens in a working class neighborhood and how they helped each other survive. Louisa talks about how Fish helped her survive. The story is emotional and I was tearing up and openly crying throughout. Their interactions can also be humorous. These young characters went through so much. He points out that the world has spent thousands of years practicing how to puncture the lungs of children who are different.

The characters come to life under his careful, compassionate, and insightful portrayal. They are all fully realized individuals with vulnerabilities, strengths and weaknesses. These teens know that they can love and trust each other, which is a combination that can be difficult to find in life. They took care of their friendship and helped the artist survive being different while encouraging his artistic pursuits.

As Backman notes several times in the well-written narrative that, the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. He writes: No one can explain why some fourteen-year-olds want to die. Nature gains nothing from unhappy children, yet they are still walking around everywhere, without the words to describe their anxiety. Also that a "Lack of self confidence is a devastating virus. There is no cure."

There is a plethora of observations about what art is and there were so many quotes I saved. A few examples: Art teaches us to mourn for strangers, isn't chronological, is what we leave of ourselves in other people, and art doesn't need critics, art has enough enemies already. Art needs friends.

My Friends is a must read book that is sure to become a classic, on many lists of one of the best books ever, and a top book club choice. Thanks to Atria Books for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.