Fredrik Backman made his first-ever television appearance Monday evening, talking with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show.
The Swedish author’s latest novel, My Friends, translated by Neil Smith, follows an 18-year-old woman who receives a painting from a dying artist and tries to find the people depicted in it. In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus called the novel “a tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.” The book is the latest pick for Fallon’s Tonight Show book club.
Joking about appearing on television for the first time, Backman said, “I imagine this is what it feels like to have a heart attack.…It’s a pretty horrible experience.”
Fallon mentioned the novel’s dedication page, which reads, “To anyone who is young and wants to create something. Do it.”
“I handed in the first draft of this book to the people that I work with, and they reacted the way you react when you don’t want to insult someone’s cooking,” Backman said. “Like, Oh, this is interesting. This is a new direction for you. Is this a conscious choice, or are we experimenting?”
He said that he went into a depressive period for a while after that, thinking he might have lost his ability to write.
“I came back, and I just had this feeling that if this is my last book—if I don’t have it anymore, because I think there’s going to be a point like that—then who would I want the book to be for?” he said. “And I sat down, and I wrote that dedication…because I don’t want to write for the critics, I don’t want to write for the cool people, I don’t want to write…to impress anyone. I wanted to write it for someone who is 16, 17, 18, and I want them to feel like, Yeah, I can do this.”
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
