Fredrik Backman’s 2019 novel Anxious People is a work of adult fiction that follows the lives of various characters and demonstrates how their anxieties, hopes, and fears intertwine. Backman is a New York Times bestselling author, columnist, and blogger whose works have been published in over 40 countries, including his native Sweden. One of his most famous novels, A Man Called Ove (2012), became a feature film in 2015.

Anxious People is a character-driven novel that uses the plot of a failed bank robbery and hostage situation as the catalyst that brings the various characters together. The novel features an opinionated, omniscient narrator who hides strategic details from the reader to make a point or enhance the plot; it explores themes of the Connection Between Anxiety and “Idiocy”, Challenging Preconceptions, and “Stockholm Syndrome,” Captivity, and Empathy.

This study guide refers to the 2020 translation by Neil Smith.

Content Warning: The source text and study guide contain discussions of suicide, substance use disorders, and abuse.

Plot Summary

The story begins with two cops, father and son duo Jim and Jack, interrogating the various hostages recently released from a faux-hostage situation at a bank. After the hostages’ release, the bank robber essentially vanished. The former hostages mostly evade Jim and Jack’s questions, and it eventually becomes clear that they’re hiding something. The story jumps from past to present: Jim and Jack interrogate the former hostages, who recall what happened during their captivity. However, the narrator frequently interrupts this pattern to include philosophical musings regarding the inner lives of the characters and humanity in general.

The bank robber (initially assumed to be a man but later revealed to be a woman) tried to rob a bank only to find that the establishment was cashless. In desperation, she fled to a nearby apartment complex and hid inside an open apartment, only to realize that the door was open because a realtor was in the middle of showing the space to hopeful buyers. The prospective homeowners saw the bank robber’s mask and gun and assumed they were being held hostage. The bank robber unintentionally upheld this theory but maintained that she wouldn’t hurt anyone. She eventually revealed that she only wanted to rob the bank because she needed money for rent—her husband recently cheated on her with her boss and divorced her, and if she couldn’t pay rent she would lose her daughters. By this point, the hostages had grown closer together and worked through collective and personal anxieties, and they decided to help the bank robber escape. Jim himself ultimately encouraged the bank robber to escape because she reminded him of his daughter.

The story also centers on a bridge that the hostages can see from the balcony of the apartment. A man died by suicide on the bridge when Jack was younger. The man felt hopeless because he lost his entire life savings in a banking downturn. Jack saw the man jump but was unable to save him, and he was forever haunted by that guilt. Weeks later, he did stop a young girl, Nadia, from jumping off the same bridge and decided to become a cop because he wanted to dedicate his life to helping people. Nadia grew up to become a psychologist and started seeing a patient named Zara, who also happened to be the banker who wouldn’t let the man who died by suicide receive a loan. She also witnessed Jack rescue Nadia on the bridge. The bridge is the element that connects these characters in a largely positive way despite originally causing their anxieties.