AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A year ago, bestselling Swedish writer Fredrik Backman stood in front of a massive audience so terrified, he was convinced he was having a heart attack.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FREDRIK BACKMAN: My brain and I, we are not friends. My brain and I, we are classmates, doing a group assignment called life, and it's not going great.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: The event was organized by book publisher Simon & Schuster. The audience laughed along, but it wasn't entirely a joke.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BACKMAN: I am so good at procrastination that the only reason that I am here tonight is because I'm supposed to be finishing a book right now.
(LAUGHTER)
CHANG: A book that he was struggling with because at the time, he was very seriously considering retiring. NPR's Elena Burnett talked to Backman about what happened next.
ELENA BURNETT, BYLINE: The issue wasn't with the writing itself, but promoting it and those large audiences - that was taking too much out of Backman.
BACKMAN: I've just been dealing with it very poorly. And I felt maybe this is not for me, and maybe I should go and see if there's something else that I could do that would make me a happier and a little more balanced individual.
BURNETT: It was during this crisis of confidence that he visited a Stockholm bookstore and found it packed with teenagers who seemed enthralled by reading.
BACKMAN: Yeah, it was a fantastic experience for me to have at that time, to see that enthusiasm and that joy. And I thought to myself, if this is the last book I'm going to write, what would I like it to be? And I sat down, and I wrote the dedication page of the book, which is, to anyone who is young and wants to create something, do it. The whole book came from that.
BURNETT: So he did end up finishing that book. It's called "My Friends," and it's out this week. It tells the story of a young artist, his three childhood friends and one remarkable summer filled with just as much laughter as there was pain. The friends do everything it takes to enter the artist into a painting competition and into a better life.
BACKMAN: I went looking for that feeling that you have when, you know, someone you love - they're looking at a painting, and you're looking at them.
BURNETT: For much of the book, Backman keeps the artist nameless, and that makes it easy to imagine Backman describing his own career when he writes that the character has, quote, "grabbed the wrong coat from a cloakroom and was wearing someone else's dream."
BACKMAN: It absolutely comes from me feeling that someone else should have had this - someone who loves being onstage and someone who loves traveling and someone who wants to be famous should have had this success. This success is wasted on me.
BURNETT: His success has come not only in the form of bestsellers like his "Beartown" trilogy and "Anxious People" but also several screen adaptations, including a film featuring one of the most famous men in the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "A MAN CALLED OTTO")
TOM HANKS: (As Otto Anderson) My God, the world is full of complete idiots who have managed to figure it out. And you are not a complete idiot.
BURNETT: That's Tom Hanks in the 2022 film "A Man Called Otto," based on Backman's novel "A Man Called Ove."
BACKMAN: I still have days where I feel like maybe it was a trick. Maybe it was a really elaborate practical joke.
BURNETT: During production, Backman visited the set with his family and enjoyed getting to chat with Hanks and watch him work. But at the same time...
BACKMAN: This insanely scary experience, just looking around at the set and thinking, do they know that I'm a fraud? Do they know that I don't even know how I finished that book?
BURNETT: That book was Backman's first. He says many publishers initially rejected the manuscript, saying it had no commercial potential. But eventually, "A Man Called Ove" found a home at Swedish publisher Forum, released in 2012, and with American publisher Simon & Schuster in 2014. It had a 42-week run on the New York Times Best Seller List. Its first film adaptation was Oscar-nominated in 2017.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PRESENTER: The nominees for best foreign language film.
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: From Sweden, "A Man Called Ove."
BURNETT: Backman flew to LA but ultimately skipped the crowded ceremony.
BACKMAN: I went on a guided tour of Dodger Stadium with a bunch of old men who had no idea that the Academy Awards was going on. It was awesome.
BURNETT: His wife went to the Oscars in his place. Backman credits her with handling everything based in the real world - agents, publishers, lawyers, accountants - while he spends time with the characters he makes up. As for expanding that imaginary world, Backman still doesn't know if "My Friends" will be his last book or if he will be able to, as he puts it, perform the trick all over again. If he can, as he told that huge audience last year, he can envision a world where his biggest problem may not be himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BACKMAN: I have no idea what I'm doing, but I became an author anyway. So you can, too.
(LAUGHTER)
BACKMAN: And I hope that one day, I will be able to tell my agent that the reason that my next book is not finished yet is because I was busy reading yours.
(APPLAUSE)
BACKMAN: Thank you very much.
BURNETT: Elena Burnett, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.