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Chapters (44)
  1. Cover
  2. 1. A Man Called Ove Buys a Computer That Is Not a Computer
  3. 2. (Three Weeks Earlier) A Man Called Ove Makes His Neighborhood Inspection
  4. 3. A Man Called Ove Backs Up With a Trailer
  5. 4. A Man Called Ove Does Not Pay a Three-kronor Surcharge
  6. 5. A Man Called Ove
  7. 6. A Man Called Ove and a Bicycle That Should Have Been Left Where Bicycles Are Left
  8. 7. A Man Called Ove Drills a Hole For a Hook
  9. 8. A Man Who Was Ove and a Pair of His Father’s Old Footprints
  10. 9. A Man Called Ove Bleeds a Radiator
  11. 10. A Man Who Was Ove and a House That Ove Built
  12. 11. A Man Called Ove and a Lanky One Who Can’t Open a Window Without Falling Off a Ladder
  13. 12. A Man Who Was Ove and One Day He Had Enough
  14. 13. A Man Called Ove and a Clown Called Beppo
  15. 14. A Man Who Was Ove and a Woman on a Train
  16. 15. A Man Called Ove and a Delayed Train
  17. 16. A Man Who Was Ove and a Truck in the Forest
  18. 17. A Man Called Ove and a Cat Annoyance in a Snowdrift
  19. 18. A Man Who Was Ove and a Cat Called Ernest
  20. 19. A Man Called Ove and a Cat That Was Broken When He Came
  21. 20. A Man Called Ove and an Intruder
  22. 21. A Man Who Was Ove and Countries Where They Play Foreign Music in Restaurants
  23. 22. A Man Called Ove and Someone in a Garage
  24. 23. A Man Who Was Ove and a Bus That Never Got There
  25. 24. A Man Called Ove and a Brat Who Draws in Color
  26. 25. A Man Called Ove and a Piece of Corrugated Iron
  27. 26. A Man Called Ove and a Society Where No One Can Repair a Bicycle Any More
  28. 27. A Man Called Ove and a Driving Lesson
  29. 28. A Man Who Was Ove and a Man Who Was Rune
  30. 29. A Man Called Ove and a Bender
  31. 30. A Man Called Ove and a Society Without Him
  32. 31. A Man Called Ove Backs Up a Trailer. Again.
  33. 32. A Man Called Ove Isn’t Running a Damned Hotel
  34. 33. A Man Called Ove and an Inspection Tour That Is Not the Usual
  35. 34. A Man Called Ove and a Boy in the House Next Door
  36. 35. A Man Called Ove and Social Incompetence
  37. 36. A Man Called Ove and a Whiskey
  38. 37. A Man Called Ove and a Lot of Bastards Sticking Their Noses In
  39. 38. A Man Called Ove and the End of a Story
  40. 39. A Man Called Ove
  41. A Man Called Ove and an Epilogue
  42. Acknowledgments
  43. About the Author
  44. Copyright

He nods at the folded-double pile of junk that used to be Ove’s mailbox until the Lanky One who can’t back up with a trailer backed his trailer into it—then nods at the letter and newspaper in Ove’s hand. Ove looks down at them. The newspaper is one of those local rags they hand out for nothing even when one puts up a sign quite expressly telling them to do no such bloody thing. And the letter is most likely advertising, Ove imagines. Admittedly his name and address have been written in longhand on the front, but that’s a typical advertising trick. To make one think it’s a letter from a real person, and then one opens it and in a flash one has been subjected to marketing. That trick won’t work on Ove.

The youth stands there rocking on his heels and looking down at the ground. As if he’s struggling with something inside that wants to come out.

“Was there something else?” Ove wonders.

The youth pulls his hand through his greasy, late-pubescent shock of hair.

“Ah, what the hell. . . . I was just wondering if you have a wife called Sonja,” he manages to say.

Ove looks suspicious. The lad points at the envelope.

“I saw the surname. I had a teacher with that name. Was just wondering. . . .”

He seems to be cursing himself for having said anything. He spins around on the spot and starts walking away. Ove clears his throat and kicks the threshold.

“Wait . . . that could be right. What about Sonja?”

The lad stops a yard farther away.

“Ah, shit. . . . I just liked her, that’s all I wanted to say. I’m . . . you know . . . I’m not so good at reading and writing and all that.”

Ove almost says, “I’d never have guessed,” but he leaves it. The youth twists awkwardly. Runs his hand through his hair, somewhat disoriented, as if he’s hoping to find the appropriate words up there somewhere.

“She’s the only teacher I ever had who didn’t think I was thick as a plank,” he mumbles, almost choking on his emotion. “She got me reading that . . . Shakespeare, you know. I didn’t know I could even read, sort of thing. She got me reading the most hard-core thick book an’ all. It felt really shit when I heard she died, you know.”

Ove doesn’t answer. The youth looks down at the ground. Shrugs.

“That’s it. . . .”

He’s silent. And then they both stand there, the fifty-nine-year-old and the teenager, a few yards apart, kicking at the snow. As if they were kicking a memory back and forth, a memory of a woman who insisted on seeing more potential in certain men than they saw in themselves. Neither of them knows what to do with their shared experience.

“What are you doing with that bike?” says Ove at last.