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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

When they go back into the café, there’s a short cube-shaped man in a stained shirt standing on a stepladder, tinkering with something that Ove suspects is a fan heater. The sooty boy stands below the stepladder with a selection of screwdrivers held aloft. He keeps mopping the remnants of makeup around his eyes, peering at the fat man on the ladder and looking a little on the nervous side. As if worried that he may be caught out. Parvaneh turns excitedly to Ove.

“This is Amel! He owns the café!” she says in a suitably gushing manner. She points to the cubic man on the ladder.

Amel doesn’t turn around, but he emits a long sequence of hard consonants that, even though Ove does not understand them, he suspects to be various combinations of four-letter words and body parts.

“What’s he saying?” asks Adrian.

The sooty boy twists uncomfortably.

“Ah . . . he . . . something about the fan heater being a bit of a fairy . . .”

He looks over at Adrian, then quickly turns his face down.

“What’s that?” asks Ove, wandering over to him.

“He means it’s worthless, like a homo,” he says in such a low voice that only Ove catches his words.

Parvaneh, on the other hand, is busy pointing at Amel with delight.

“You can’t hear what he’s saying but you sort of know that almost all of it is swear words! He’s like a dubbed version of you, Ove!”

Ove doesn’t look particularly delighted. Nor does Amel.

He stops tinkering with the fan heater and points at Ove with the screwdriver.

“The cat? Is that your cat?”

“No,” says Ove.

Not so much because he wants to point out that it isn’t his cat, but because he wants to clarify that it’s no one’s cat.

“Cat out! No animals in café!” Amel slashes at the consonants so that they hop about like naughty children caught inside the sentence.

Ove looks with interest at the fan heater above Amel’s head. Then at the cat on the bar stool. Then at the toolbox, which Adrian is still holding in his hand. Then at the fan heater again. And at Amel.

“If I repair that for you, the cat stays.”

He offers this more as a statement than a question. Amel seems to lose his self-possession for a few moments. By the time he regains it, in a way he could probably not explain afterwards, he has become the man holding the stepladder rather than the man standing on the stepladder. Ove digs about up there for a few minutes, climbs down, brushes the palm of his hand against his trouser leg, and hands the screwdriver and a little adjustable wrench to the sooty boy.

“You fixed!” cries Amel suddenly as the fan heater splutters back to life.

In an effusive manner, he grabs Ove’s shoulders.

“Whiskey? You want? In my kitchen I have the whiskey!”