My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises centres around the relationship between seven-year-old Elsa and her Granny.
Elsa’s Granny is what my Nana would have called ‘a character’. Far from blending into the background, handing out sweets, baking cakes or any other sweet old Granny cliches, she is wild and fun loving and free. Driving illegally, breaking into the zoo, wandering around naked, and firing paintballs from her balcony in her dressing gown are just some of the antics she gets up to in the novel, and you can’t help but imagine the carnage and joy of having someone like that in your life.
Yet it is not the real life antics of her Granny which have such an impact on Elsa’s life, but the stories she tells her: stories of knights and dragons and adventures in the magical Land of Almost Awake.
When Elsa’s Granny gets sick and dies, it threatens to tear Elsa’s world apart, but Granny has left her one last quest: to deliver a series of letters to people from her past.
As Elsa sets out to fulfil the mission left to her by the most important person in her world, she begins to discover that the fairy tales she enjoyed are not entirely the fiction she assumed. Along the way she meets more ‘characters’ from all walks of life, learns lessons about people and how to treat them, and discovers so much more about her Granny’s past – and about her own mother – than she could ever have imagined.
This book was just beautiful.
Elsa’s Grandmother is a scream, and following Elsa on her journey of discovery is a joy, but it is the beauty of the relationship between the two which is the real triumph of this novel. The author grabbed hold of my heart in the early pages and did not let it go until the end. I’m not ashamed to admit that I sobbed through the final chapter (I feel a little teary just writing this review).
Though I have now researched his impressive back catalogue, I had never heard of author Frederik Backman before this book. It arrived unexpectedly in a package through my letterbox one day, with a note from a friend saying simply ‘Read this. You’ll love it’. Books are always the best gift, in my opinion. But a book for no occasion or reason other than the wonder it contains, is the best gift of all. And this book truly was a gift.
Commentaires