A Man Called Ove: A Novel (32 page)
Read A Man Called Ove: A Novel Online
Authors: Fredrik Backman
In the evening she shows a young, recently married couple around Ove and Sonja’s house. The woman is pregnant. Her eyes glitter as she walks through the rooms, the way eyes glitter when a person imagines her child’s future memories unfolding there on the floor. Her husband is obviously much less pleased with the place. He’s wearing a pair of carpenter’s trousers and he mostly goes around kicking the baseboards suspiciously and looking annoyed. Parvaneh obviously knows it doesn’t make any difference; she can see in the girl’s eyes that the decision has already been made. But when the young man asks in a sullen tone about “that garage place” mentioned in the ad, Parvaneh looks him up and down carefully, nods drily, and asks what car he drives. The young man straightens up for the first time, smiles an almost undetectable smile, and looks her right in the eye with the sort of indomitable pride that only one word can convey.
“Saab.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
J
onas Cramby. Brilliant journalist and a real gentleman. Because you discovered Ove and gave him a name that first time, and for so generously allowing me to carry on with his story.
John Häggblom. My editor. Because in a gifted and scrupulous manner you advised me on all my linguistic failings, and because you patiently and humbly accepted all the times I totally ignored your advice.
Rolf Backman. My father. Because I hope I am unlike you in the smallest possible number of ways.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photograph by Henric Lindsten
Fredrik Backman is a Swedish blogger and columnist. He is author of a work of nonfiction,
Things My Son Needs to Know About Life,
and
A Man Called Ove
, his first novel, which has sold more than 500,000 copies in its native country and will be published in more than twenty-five languages all over the world. He was reported the most successful author in Sweden in 2013.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
authors.simonandschuster.com/Fredrik-Backman
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real
people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and
events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual
events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 by Fredrik Backman
Translation © 2013 by Henning Koch
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First Atria Books hardcover edition July 2014.
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton.
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Interior design by Paul Dippolito
Jacket design by Alan Dingman
Jacket photographs by Getty and Shutterstock
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Backman, Fredrik, 1981–
[Man som heter Ove. English]
A man called Ove : a novel / by Fredrik Backman.—First Atria Books
hardcover edition.
pages cm
I. Title.
PT9877.12.A32M3613 2014
839.73’8—dc23 2014015618
ISBN 978-1-4767-3801-7
ISBN 978-1-4767-3803-1(ebook)
Contents
1. A Man Called Ove Buys a Computer That Is Not a Computer
2. (Three Weeks Earlier) A Man Called Ove Makes His Neighborhood Inspection
3. A Man Called Ove Backs Up With a Trailer
4. A Man Called Ove Does Not Pay a Three-kronor Surcharge
6. A Man Called Ove and a Bicycle That Should Have Been Left Where Bicycles Are Left
7. A Man Called Ove Drills a Hole For a Hook
8. A Man Who Was Ove and a Pair of His Father’s Old Footprints
9. A Man Called Ove Bleeds a Radiator
10. A Man Who Was Ove and a House That Ove Built
11. A Man Called Ove and a Lanky One Who Can’t Open a Window Without Falling Off a Ladder
12. A Man Who Was Ove and One Day He Had Enough
13. A Man Called Ove and a Clown Called Beppo
14. A Man Who Was Ove and a Woman on a Train
15. A Man Called Ove and a Delayed Train
16. A Man Who Was Ove and a Truck in the Forest
17. A Man Called Ove and a Cat Annoyance in a Snowdrift
18. A Man Who Was Ove and a Cat Called Ernest
19. A Man Called Ove and a Cat That Was Broken When He Came
20. A Man Called Ove and an Intruder
21. A Man Who Was Ove and Countries Where They Play Foreign Music in Restaurants
22. A Man Called Ove and Someone in a Garage
23. A Man Who Was Ove and a Bus That Never Got There
24. A Man Called Ove and a Brat Who Draws in Color
25. A Man Called Ove and a Piece of Corrugated Iron
26. A Man Called Ove and a Society Where No One Can Repair a Bicycle Any More
27. A Man Called Ove and a Driving Lesson
28. A Man Who Was Ove and a Man Who Was Rune
29. A Man Called Ove and a Bender
30. A Man Called Ove and a Society Without Him
31. A Man Called Ove Backs Up a Trailer. Again.
32. A Man Called Ove Isn’t Running a Damned Hotel
33. A Man Called Ove and an Inspection Tour That Is Not the Usual
34. A Man Called Ove and a Boy in the House Next Door
35. A Man Called Ove and Social Incompetence
36. A Man Called Ove and a Whiskey
37. A Man Called Ove and a Lot of Bastards Sticking Their Noses In
38. A Man Called Ove and the End of a Story