A man committed suicide on the bridge when Jack was younger. The story revolves around a friendly hostage situation, but it also centers on a bridge that the hostages can see from the balcony of the apartment. This sentiment develops further when Jim encourages the bank robber to escape because she reminds him of his heroin-addicted daughter. By this point, the hostages have grown closer together and worked through collective and personal anxieties, and they decide to help the bank robber escape. She eventually reveals 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 can’t pay rent she will lose her daughters. The bank robber unintentionally upholds this theory but maintains that she won’t hurt anyone. The prospective home owners see the bank robber’s mask and gun and assume they’re being held hostage. 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 is in the middle of showing the space to hopeful buyers. The bank robber initially tried to rob a bank only to find that the establishment was cashless. However, the narrator frequently interrupts this pattern to include philosophical musings regarding the inner lives of the characters and humanity. The story jumps from past to present: Jim and Jack interrogate the former hostages, and they recall what happened during their captivity. The former hostages mostly evade Jim and Jack’s questions, and it eventually becomes clear that they’re hiding something. After their release, the bank robber essentially vanished. The story begins with two cops, father and son duo Jim and Jack, interrogating the various hostages recently released from a faux-hostage situation. However, towards the end of the story the narrator reveals that the bank robber is a woman. In the beginning of the novel, the narrator refers to the bank robber without attaching gender, and the cops assume that the bank robber is a man. The bank robber exemplifies this narrative technique. Backman achieves this through an opinionated, omniscient narrator who hides strategic details from the reader to make a point or enhance the plot. The novel also continually uses the element of surprise to slowly reveal key facts regarding the secrets and details of the characters and the plot. 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.

Fredrik backman anxious