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Cover of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Literary Fiction · Free kit

A Man Called Ove

Fredrik Backman

On a Swedish row-house street, fifty-nine-year-old Ove patrols gates, bins, and parking rules as if the neighborhood would collapse without him. Six months after losing Sonja — the woman who was all the color he had — he has been forced to retire, and he is running out of reasons to stay. Then a family backs a trailer into his mailbox, a pregnant neighbor named Parvaneh refuses to take a hint, and a half-frozen cat becomes his problem. Fredrik Backman's debut is funny, furious, and unexpectedly tender: a novel about a man who believes in doing things properly, and the stubborn people who will not let him disappear.

“He was a man of black and white. And she was color. All the color he had.”

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