REVIEW: The Answer is No by Fredrik Backman

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JayneB Reviews / Book ReviewsContemporary / Fiction / neighbors / novella4 Comments

In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.

Dear Mr. Backman, 

Somehow, despite all your best seller books, I’ve never read any of them. I did try to watch one of the “A Man Called Ove” movies (original Swedish) but turned it off fairly quickly. But I decided to try this novella because sometimes I feel like MC Lucas – World, just leave me alone and we’ll all be happier. The title also reminded me a bit of the old David Spade “Capital One” commercials where The Answer is Always No. 

Lucas wants to be left alone to eat his pizza, drink some red wine, and finish his new video game but someone throws out a frying pan and his plan goes to hell. The Pile starts, the residence board appears on his doorstep, and his neighbors start to talk to him. 

While it’s only 68 pages long, I did laugh a lot while reading it and it’s a wonderful microcosm of modern life. We get neighbors (good and bad), city government (annoyingly bad), a residence board (you really should go to the meetings if only so you’re not put in charge of something), and FB groups (so bad). Up til now, Lucas has avoided all of this which makes him … maybe not happy but not unhappy either which is much less exhausting than trying to be happy all the time. Sadly he’s soon dragged kicking, sighing, and horrified into a Kafkaesque mess because he makes the mistake of actually trying to solve a problem rather than just laying blame on someone. 

The first half or slightly more of the story is truly funny but then it sort of jumps the tracks when the FB angel groups appear. The image of a three-headed hydra board (“Not now, Linda!”) had me in stitches. Lucas is horrified to discover he’s actually beginning to be (gasp!) social as well as being called upon to make decisions. In the end, it seems like maybe he’s found a middle way? I’d give this one a B and will be checking out more possible Backman books. 

~Jayne  

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Jayne

Another long time reader who read romance novels in her teens, then took a long break before started back again about 25 years ago. She enjoys historical romance/fiction best, likes contemporaries, action- adventure and mysteries, will read suspense if there’s no TSTL characters and is currently reading more fantasy and SciFi.

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