My Friends
by Fredrik Backman
Simon & Schuster
Louisa hated the pompous self-important people who looked at art as pieces of investment. She’d had carried a postcard of a painting with her for ages and wanted to see the real thing up close. And, being brought up in foster homes for most of her life, almost eighteen year-old Louisa was resourceful.
The painting is called One of the Sea, and most people just see the vastness of the sea and the sky. But not Louisa who is an aspiring artist herself. She sees the three tiny figures at the end of the long pier in the corner of this extremely expensive painting that is up for auction.
It was painted one endless summer when the people at the end of the pier were fourteen, about to turn fifteen, and described as a “pack of wild animals” by those in the small harbour town. They sought refuge from their horrendous home lives in their friendship and support for each other.
Louisa, who has never met an adult she could trust, identifies with the young people in the painting and she wants to learn more about them. Being homeless and having lost her only friend, the last thing she expected was to actually bump into the artist as she was chased from the art auction.
Without giving too much away, this fracture in the universe allows Louisa to become immersed in the stories of all the young people who laughed and dreamed and farted at the end of the pier, as they brought out the best in each other a quarter of a century before.
“Stories are complicated, memories are merciless, our brains only store a few moments from the best days of our lives, but we remember every second from the worst.” The painting preserves one of those best moments and the unfolding story envelops the reader in all the intricacies.
Lezly Herbert
