Chapters (44)
- Cover
- 1. A Man Called Ove Buys a Computer That Is Not a Computer
- 2. (Three Weeks Earlier) A Man Called Ove Makes His Neighborhood Inspection
- 3. A Man Called Ove Backs Up With a Trailer
- 4. A Man Called Ove Does Not Pay a Three-kronor Surcharge
- 5. A Man Called Ove
- 6. A Man Called Ove and a Bicycle That Should Have Been Left Where Bicycles Are Left
- 7. A Man Called Ove Drills a Hole For a Hook
- 8. A Man Who Was Ove and a Pair of His Father’s Old Footprints
- 9. A Man Called Ove Bleeds a Radiator
- 10. A Man Who Was Ove and a House That Ove Built
- 11. A Man Called Ove and a Lanky One Who Can’t Open a Window Without Falling Off a Ladder
- 12. A Man Who Was Ove and One Day He Had Enough
- 13. A Man Called Ove and a Clown Called Beppo
- 14. A Man Who Was Ove and a Woman on a Train
- 15. A Man Called Ove and a Delayed Train
- 16. A Man Who Was Ove and a Truck in the Forest
- 17. A Man Called Ove and a Cat Annoyance in a Snowdrift
- 18. A Man Who Was Ove and a Cat Called Ernest
- 19. A Man Called Ove and a Cat That Was Broken When He Came
- 20. A Man Called Ove and an Intruder
- 21. A Man Who Was Ove and Countries Where They Play Foreign Music in Restaurants
- 22. A Man Called Ove and Someone in a Garage
- 23. A Man Who Was Ove and a Bus That Never Got There
- 24. A Man Called Ove and a Brat Who Draws in Color
- 25. A Man Called Ove and a Piece of Corrugated Iron
- 26. A Man Called Ove and a Society Where No One Can Repair a Bicycle Any More
- 27. A Man Called Ove and a Driving Lesson
- 28. A Man Who Was Ove and a Man Who Was Rune
- 29. A Man Called Ove and a Bender
- 30. A Man Called Ove and a Society Without Him
- 31. A Man Called Ove Backs Up a Trailer. Again.
- 32. A Man Called Ove Isn’t Running a Damned Hotel
- 33. A Man Called Ove and an Inspection Tour That Is Not the Usual
- 34. A Man Called Ove and a Boy in the House Next Door
- 35. A Man Called Ove and Social Incompetence
- 36. A Man Called Ove and a Whiskey
- 37. A Man Called Ove and a Lot of Bastards Sticking Their Noses In
- 38. A Man Called Ove and the End of a Story
- 39. A Man Called Ove
- A Man Called Ove and an Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright
He was doubtful about whether he’d be any good at being someone’s dad. He didn’t like children an awful lot. He hadn’t even been very good at being a child. Sonja thought he should talk to Rune about it because they were “in the same situation.” Ove couldn’t quite understand what she meant by that. Rune was not in fact going to be the father of Ove’s child, but of an altogether different one. At least Rune agreed with Ove about the point of not having much to discuss, and that was something. So when Anita came over in the evenings and sat in the kitchen with Sonja, talking about the aches and pains and all those things, Ove and Rune made the excuse of having “things” to talk about and went out to Ove’s shed and just stood there in silence, picking at various bits on Ove’s workbench.
Standing there next to each other behind a closed door for the third night running without knowing what they were supposed to do with themselves, they agreed that they needed to get busy with something before, as Rune put it, “the new neighbors start thinking there’s some sort of monkey business going on in here.”
Ove agreed that it might be best to do as he said. And so it was. They didn’t talk much while they were doing it, but they helped each other with the drawings and measuring the angles and ensuring that the corners were straight and properly done. And late one evening when Anita and Sonja were in the fourth month, two light blue cribs were installed in the prepared nurseries of their row houses.
“We can sand it down and repaint it pink if we get a girl,” mumbled Ove when he showed it to Sonja. Sonja put her arms around him, and he felt his neck getting all wet with her tears. Completely irrational hormones.
“I want you to ask me to be your wife,” she whispered.