Fredrik Backman’s new novel ‘My Friends’ is heartfelt, funny, and beautiful
A young runaway artist finds hope in the story of a group of four best friends who lived 25 years ago
★★★★★
My Friends
Fredrik Backman
Translated by Neil Smith
Atria Books
May 6, 2025
My Friends is Fredrik Backman’s newest novel, translated into English by Neil Smith. It begins with an epigraph from Anton Ego: “The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends,” and tells the story of two young artists and the people who believe in them through Backman’s characteristic heartwarming and poignant writing.
In My Friends, Backman continues writing about the themes of love, grief, and family that he has explored in his previous novels, but still manages to create a new and wholly unique story. My Friends is an ode to young artists who are unsure of themselves and courageous teenagers who refuse to give up on their friends.
Louisa is a 17-year-old girl in foster care who has almost nothing to her name but a postcard of a painting, The One of the Sea by C. Jat, which depicts three teenagers sitting at the edge of a long pier that stretches into the sea. Louisa has spent years imagining those three teenagers, and she feels closer to them than to any living person. Following the death of her closest friend, Fish, the painting becomes Louisa’s lifeline. The autopsy report shows that Fish died from a drug overdose, but Louisa knows the truth; Fish was “murdered by reality.”
When she finds out the original painting is getting auctioned off, Louisa runs away from her foster home to where it’s being sold; through a series of unexpected events, she becomes the new owner of The One of the Sea. This begins Louisa’s journey to uncover the teenagers’ identities, during which she discovers they were C. Jat’s three best friends who forged their own family amidst the violence and uncertainty they grew up in. Louisa learns that C. Jat was once a young artist like her, and she realizes how “the world is full of miracles, but none greater than how far a young person can be carried by someone else’s belief in them.”
Backman’s previous Beartown trilogy revealed his remarkable gift for depicting deep childhood friendships, and he hones in on this strength in My Friends. He has a true understanding of the unparalleled love between young people who find in each other the friendship and safety that they have not found in their own homes. C. Jat’s friends (indomitable Joar, enthusiastic Ali, and steadfast Ted) come alive in the pages of My Friends, and are as endearing and real as readers have come to expect of Backman’s work.
Backman returns to a lighter tone compared to his previous work, but he still does not shy away from writing about suffering. The ending of My Friends is the one of the strongest parts of the novel, and shows that Backman will only keep on surprising readers.
Like the rest of Backman’s work, My Friends unflinchingly depicts heartbreak and suffering while ultimately being courageously hopeful and life affirming. My Friends is an essential comfort to any young artist, a reminder that “there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things.”