Excerpt from My Friends by Fredrik Backman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Bearing all this in mind, you might of course think that someone ought to have noticed her when she stepped into the old church, but first you have to realize that rich adults hardly ever notice anything, apart from mirrors. There are expensive paintings hanging on all the walls, each masterpiece followed by an even grander one, but the room is full of people busily trying to see their hairstyles in the reflection of their Champagne glasses. One group of cheerful women are taking photographs, not of the art, but of each other. A group of serious men are talking about their favorite paintings, not as works of art, but as investments, as if they were framed banknotes. Then the men start talking about golf instead, and the women laugh loudly at something fantastic, because everything in their lives is the best, everyone is so wonderful, and isn't it amazing that this building is an old church? Obviously none of them dares to actually talk about the paintings on the walls, they're far too frightened of accidentally thinking the wrong thing, someone else needs to think something first so they can know what they're allowed to love. One of the women returns from the bathroom and looks horrified, because someone has painted "graffiti" on the walls in there, the paint smelled and now the woman has a migraine.

"Graffiti? How awful! Vandalism!" one of the women exclaims, but one of the other women whispers:

"But ... do you think the graffiti is part of the exhibition? Do you think it's ... art?"

Panic spreads through the group like pee in a tent. Because what if they're wrong? The women hurry over to the men who are talking about golf to ask if it's art. One of the men asks: "Is there a price tag?"

Then the women shake their heads and laugh. No price tag, no art, oh, what a relief! The men point at the walls and talk about investments again. When they talk about the very best investment in the whole church, they point at one painting and say, "The One of the Sea," as if that's all it is: blue and expensive. Angry? Louisa can't understand how she could possibly be anything else.

Excerpted from My Friends by Fredrik Backman. Copyright © 2025 by Fredrik Backman. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.