My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises by Fredrik Backman

Reading My Grandmother Sends her Regards and Apologises made we wish that I were my grandchildren’s super hero and their best friend in the whole wide world just like Elsa’s grandmother was to her.

We all remember our grandmothers fondly, but few of us would consider them our super hero. The one who swept us along on wild car chases through the streets, climbed over zoo fences at night; or sat for hours with us in the wardrobe creating an alternate fairy world of knights and princesses, kings and dragons until this alternate universe became our reality. Elsa’s grandmother did all of these things and more. Some called her eccentric, others thought she had lost the plot. But for Elsa she was the be-all and end-all.

This tale reminded me of Rachel Joyce’s The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, as Backman’s writing and his approach is similarly refreshing and different – in this case written from the point of view of a highly gifted 7-year-old. It’s a hilarious read but also deeply profound, and I was immediately captivated and enthralled by the rich variety of characters that makes up Elsa’s world in their block of flats in Sweden.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies she leaves her with a mission. She is devastated by the loss of her best friend but, as brave as the knight in her fantasy world, she undertakes the tasks set out by her grandmother. In the process we get to know who her grandmother really was, what an amazing brave woman she had been and how she had connected to and impacted the lives of all the people to whom Elsa is instructed to deliver her grandmother’s letters of regards and apology.

There is so much more than meets the eye in this book as one learns, along with young Elsa, about the many terrible things that constitute the world of grown-ups. A mother whose entire family is swept away by a tsunami, families and marriages that break up, the devastation of war and consequential post-traumatic stress disorder, and various other evil deeds that come so naturally to humans.

It is simply a wonderful story. For someone who usually shies away from fantasy, I found myself totally at home in Elsa’s Land-of-Almost-Awake, wishing that every sad thing that happens in the world could be transformed and cushioned in her fairyland so that I could in this way maintain the optimism and open-mindedness of the 7-year-old narrator.

Backman has a wonderful skill to flip seamlessly between fantasy and reality, sadness and laugh-out-loud moments and still ensure that the reader remains captivated to the very end.