My Friends
by Fredrik Backman
GENRE: Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction
Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.
Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.
Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.
Author Biography
Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, Anxious People, The Winners, My Friends, as well as two novellas and one work of nonfiction. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. - Simon & Schuster
Reviews
Publisher's Weekly
Backman (The Winner) delivers a wistful story about the power of friendships. The day before her 18th birthday, Louisa sneaks into an auction house to see The One of the Sea, the first painting by a famous artist who goes by C. Jat. After a guard chases her out, she has a brief encounter in the alley with the artist, whom she initially mistakes for a homeless person. The painter, whose real name is revealed later in the story, has been dealing with a long illness, and just before he dies, he tasks his friend Ted, one of four boys depicted in the 25-year-old painting, with tracking down Louisa to gift it to her. Louisa has just aged out of foster care and is reeling from the recent death of her close friend from an overdose. Though she worries she’s not capable of taking responsibility for the painting, she finds comfort in the story Ted tells her of the summer the painting was made, when the friends were 14 and they were all dealing with upheaval. Ted’s father had died that summer, and the artist’s unstable single mother was urging him to “just try to be normal.” Louisa and Ted’s interactions feel genuine, which makes the effect of his story on her all the more moving. The author is at the top of his game. (May) --Staff (Reviewed 05/26/2025) (Publishers Weekly, vol 272, issue 21, p)
Kirkus
/* Starred Review */ An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship. (Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2025)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal
Bestselling Backman, whose A Man Called Ove was turned into a movie starring Tom Hanks, returns with a tale of four teenage friends depicted in a painting. Artist Louisa ends up with the portrait 25 years later and decides to find out the story behind the canvas. Prepub Alert. Copyright 2025 Library Journal --Melissa DeWild And Neal Wyatt (Reviewed 01/01/2025) (Library Journal, vol 150, issue 1, p1)
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