The new book by Fredrik Backman, the Swedish author of the New York Times–bestselling A Man Called Ove, is unlike any of his others. For one thing, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is a novella, a brief book with a lifelong message for readers. It is also a fable of sorts, the impressionistic story of a grandfather facing the onset of dementia. He is a mathematician, a husband still passionately in love with his late wife; he is the too-busy father to his son Ted, and a life-changing influence on his grandson, Noah. The story—kind, compassionate, sad, and hopeful—is set, partly, in the dreamscape of the grandfather’s failing mind. It’s a powerfully moving tale that just about anyone can relate to.
Backman’s many fans won’t have long to wait for a new full-length novel: Beartown will be out from Atria in May 2017. Meanwhile, he wrote this letter to his readers to explain why And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer is so deeply and personally important to him:
Dear Reader, One of my idols once said, “The worst part about growing old is that I don’t get any ideas anymore.” Those words have never quite left me since, because this would be my greatest fear: imagination giving up before the body does. I guess I’m not alone in this. Humans are a strange breed in the way our fear of getting old seems even greater than our fear of dying.
This is a story about memories, and about letting go. It’s a love letter and a slow farewell between a man and his grandson, and between a dad and his boy.
I never meant for you to read it, to be quite honest. I wrote it just because I was trying to sort out my own thoughts, and I’m the kind of person who needs to see what I’m thinking on paper to make sense of it. But it turned into a small tale of how I’m dealing with slowly losing the greatest minds I know, about missing someone who is still here, and how I wanted to explain it all to my children. I’m letting it go now, for what it’s worth.
It’s about fear and love, and how they seem to go hand in hand most of the time. Most of all it’s about time. While we still have it. Thank you for giving this story yours.
Sincerely,
Fredrik Backman
Books by Fredrik Backman:
A Man Called Ove
Washington Square Press
ISBN 9781476738024
$16, trade paper
Also available in e-book, hardcover, and audio.
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
Washington Square Press
ISBN 9781501115073
$16, trade paper
Also available in e-book, hardcover, and audio.
Britt-Marie Was Here
Atria Books
ISBN 9781501142536
$26, hardcover
Also available in e-book and audio.
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
Atria Books
ISBN 9781501160486
$18, hardcover
Also available in e-book and audio.
On sale November 1
