If you feel like escaping everyday life and journeying into a heart-wrenching yet heartwarming novel, consider slipping into the pages of “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry.”
This whimsical story, written by Swedish author Fredrik Backman, follows a 7-year-old girl and her other 77-year-old grandmother through a series of adventures and misadventures. Originally published in Swedish in 2013, the novel was translated into English by Henning Koch in 2015.
Elsa is an observant, intelligent and quirky child, and her equally flamboyant, chain-smoking, mischievous grandmother is her best friend and superhero.
It turns out Grandmother really was a superhero; Elsa discovers her grandmother was once a doctor who saved many lives before she was born.
Grandmother uses fantastical stories about the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas to help the young girl cope with real-life challenges, including bullies.
Her larger-than-life presence comes to an abrupt end when she dies of cancer, but not before sending Elsa on one final adventure: delivering cryptic letters to neighbors. Each apology, written in code, unlocks a secret.
As the girl navigates grief, she draws on the imagination Grandmother nurtured and begins to realize those playful stories may be more deeply rooted in reality than they first appeared.
What was also super compelling to me in “My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry” was how vividly and accurately Backman captured the essence of the little girl and older granny — despite writing the novel as a 32-year-old man. He has openly talked about plucking inspiration from fathering his young child, who was a toddler at the time of publication.
My main qualm is that the feisty, fun-loving grandmother dies relatively early, leaving readers to spend much of the novel navigating life without her.
But I suppose that is how it is with any great loss. It made me wish I had spent more time with my own late grandmother and, perhaps, may leave you feeling the same.
Backman is also the author of the bestselling novel “A Man Called Ove,” first published in Swedish in 2012. Film lovers might recognize it as the main source material for the 2022 American film adaptation “A Man Called Otto,” starring Tom Hanks as a grumpy yet lovable protagonist whose name was Americanized for the remake.
