“‘We want to be loved…Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in to hers. Our souls abhor a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.’” (p. 308 Britt- Marie quoting Doctor Glas)

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Her Apologies

Fredrik Backman

Translation by Henning Koch

Sceptre; Hodder & Stoughton

Hachette Australia

ISBN: 978 1 444 775846

Description:

The hilarious, heart-breaking new novel by the author of the international bestseller A MAN CALLED OVE.

‘Granny has been telling fairy tales for as long as Elsa can remember. In the beginning they were only to make Elsa go to sleep, and to get her to practise granny’s secret language, and a little because granny is just about as nutty as a granny should be. But lately the stories have another dimension as well. Something Elsa can’t quite put her finger on…’

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy. Standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-men-who-want-to-talk-about-Jesus-crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa runs to her grandmother’s stories, to the Land of Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas. There, everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

So when Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has hurt, it marks the beginning of Elsa’s greatest adventure. Her grandmother’s letters lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and totally ordinary old crones-but also to the truth about fairytales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.

My View:

Heart-warming, funny, acerbic, clever and best of all I love granny!

I love granny. Why you ask? With granny on your side you are shrouded in a cape of love. Everyone deserves their own superhero.

Granny says:

“(she) shouldn’t take any notice  of what those muppets think…because all the best people are different. “ (p.1)

“So sometimes the safest place is when you flee to what seems the most dangerous.”  (p.79)

“Only different people can change the world…No one normal has ever changed a crappy thing.” (p.82)

“Never mess with someone who has more spare time then you do.” (p. 180)

And granny (then) said “the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the ‘non shit ‘side as one can.” (p.305)    J