When I picked up Fredrik Backman’s newest book, My Friends (2025), I expected to find characters I’d love, and did: four teenaged friends (loyal, troubled, risk taking, dependent on each other, working through complexities with parents and in themselves).
I didn’t expect two lessons in theology.
1) ‘Can I ask something?’ Louisa asks, then asks immediately: ‘How do you cope with death’
It’s Christian’s mother who answers:
‘It’s art that helps me cope. Because art is fragile magic, just like love, and that’s humanity’s only defense against death . . . . . Everything beautiful is a shield. Vincent van Gogh wrote: “I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.”’
2) ‘Do you think God exists?’ Ali asked her friends.
‘Yes,’ Kimkim replied, running his pencil across the drawing so gently that it was impossible to know if made a difference on the paper or just inside him.
Joar was breathing hard.
‘Damned if I know . . . I don’t even think that all the people who go to church every Sunday believe in God. I think they just need company. To find that they belong in a group.’
KimKim nodded gently and replied:
‘But I don’t think that means that God doesn’t exist, Joar, I think maybe that’s what God is.’
These definitions of God speak to me and make me especially grateful for art and, dear SMITF friends, for your company.
Annette Atkins
