A Man Called Ove

Inspiration

Backman got his inspiration for this book after reading an article about a man named Ove who had a fit while buying tickets at an art museum. Backman instantly related to this man as he claims to be "not great at talking to people". He started writing blogposts under the heading, "I am a Man Called Ove", where he wrote about his pet peeves and annoyances. Eventually, he realized that his writing had potential for the creation of an interesting fictional character.

Plot

Ove is fifty-nine years old, and as far as he's concerned, the world has gone soft and stupid. He drives a Saab. He believes in doing things properly screws over nails, precision over sentiment. Every morning he patrols the small housing association where he lives, checking that no one has parked wrong, that the gate to the storage shed is locked, that the world is still following the rules it's supposed to follow. He is, by every neighbor's account, insufferable.

But Ove has just lost his job of over thirty years pushed out by men half his age talking about "streamlining" and six months earlier, he lost his wife, Sonja. Now he lives alone in the house they shared, and each morning he visits her grave to give her a report on his day, the way he always did. And each night, he has started trying to kill himself, so he can go be with her. He ties a rope to the ceiling. He tries the car in the closed garage. Every single time, something absurd interrupts him and that something is almost always his new neighbors.

A moving truck backs into his mailbox, and out spirals Parvaneh: pregnant, Iranian, loud, endlessly persistent, married to a well-meaning disaster named Patrick who manages to break his leg trying to back up a U-Haul. Parvaneh takes one look at grumpy, hostile Ove and decides, against all his protests, that he is going to be useful to her family. She recruits him to drive her to the hospital. She sends her daughters to his door. She simply does not leave him alone, no matter how rude he is to her and Ove, despite himself, cannot bring himself to actually refuse her.

As this is happening in the present, the book keeps folding backward into Ove's past. His father was a quiet railway worker who taught him that a man is measured by what he builds and repairs, not what he says and then died suddenly in an accident when Ove was sixteen, leaving him alone in the world at an age when he should have still been a boy. Ove met Sonja on a train, by accident vibrant, warm, endlessly patient with his silences, the only person who ever made him want to talk. He fell for her completely. They married, and for a while life was simple and good, until a bus crash on their honeymoon paralyzed Sonja and killed the child she was carrying. It was the second time catastrophe had taken something irreplaceable from him without warning and this time, instead of breaking, Ove rebuilt his entire life around her: adapting their home, fighting bureaucracies for her right to keep teaching from a wheelchair, never once treating her like something broken. Sonja kept pulling warmth out of him for the rest of her life, until cancer took her too which is where the present of the story begins, Ove alone for the first time since he was a teenager.

Characters

Ove — A grumpy, 59-year-old widower who has recently been forced to retire

Sonja — Ove's deceased wife

Parvaneh — Ove's neighbor, a pregnant woman of Iranian descent, and a mother of two

Patrick — Parvaneh's husband

Rune — Ove's former friend who has become a nemesis and neighbor, he now has Alzheimer's

Anita — Rune's wife

Adrian — The neighborhood mailman

Jimmy — The overweight neighbor

Reception

Kirkus Reviews gave a positive review of the novel, describing how, "the back story chapters have a simple, fablelike quality, while the current-day chapters are episodic and, at times, hysterically funny. In both instances, the narration can veer toward the preachy or overly pat, but wry descriptions, excellent pacing and the juxtaposition of Ove's attitude with his deeds add plenty of punch to balance out any pathos." Publishers Weekly called the novel "a fuzzy crowd-pleaser that serves up laughs to accompany a thoughtful reflection on loss and love. Though Ove's antics occasionally feel repetitive, the author writes with winning charm."

Adaptations

Film

The novel was adapted into A Man Called Ove, a Swedish film released on 25 December 2015, written and directed by Hannes Holm and starring Rolf Lassgård as Ove. The film was nominated for six awards, winning two, at the 51st Guldbagge Awards in 2016. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling categories at the 89th Academy Awards.

An English-language film adaptation called A Man Called Otto was also released, with Tom Hanks starring and producing.

Theatre

In January 2015, a stage version of the book, starring Johan Rheborg in the leading role as Ove, premiered in Stockholm, Sweden.

In June 2016 Rheborg was one of three people responsible for the dramatisation A Man Called Ove for Oslo Nye Teater (Oslo New Theatre), in a stage production performed in collaboration with the Norwegian Touring Theatre and Thorsson Productions and directed by Bjarni Haukur Thorsson. Sven Nordin played Ove, for which he was nominated for the 2017 Hedda Award for best leading actor.

Audiobook

In July 2014, Dreamscape Media released an audiobook version of this book, read in English by the American actor George Newbern. In November 2019, Simon & Schuster released an audiobook version read in English by American actor J.K. Simmons.