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Back A Man Called Ove
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

Ove had hardly been as discreet as a Russian spy, she added. She’d come to the conclusion that he had his reasons for it. And she’d liked the way he listened to her. And made her laugh. And that, she said, had been more than enough for her.

And then she asked him what he really wanted to do with his life, if he could choose anything he wanted. And he answered, without even thinking about it, that he wanted to build houses. Construct them. Draw the plans. Calculate the best way to make them stand where they stood. And then she didn’t start laughing as he thought she would. She got angry.

“But why don’t you do it, then?” she demanded.

Ove did not have a particularly good answer to that one.

On the following Monday she came to his house with brochures for a correspondence course leading to an engineering qualification. The old landlady was quite overwhelmed when she looked at the beautiful young woman walking up the stairs with self-confident steps. Later she tapped Ove’s back and whispered that those flowers were probably a very good investment. Ove couldn’t help but agree.

When he came up to his room she was sitting on his bed. Ove stood sulkily in the doorway, with his hands in his pockets. She looked at him and laughed.

“Are we an item now?” she asked.

“Well, yes,” he replied hesitantly, “I suppose it could be that way.”

And then it was that way.

She handed him the brochures. It was a two-year course, and it proved that all the time Ove had spent learning about house building had not, after all, been wasted as he’d once believed. Maybe he did not have much of a head for studying in a conventional sense, but he understood numbers and he understood houses. That got him far. He took the examination after six months. Then another. And another. Then he got a job at the housing office and stayed there for more than a third of a century. Worked hard, was never ill, paid his mortgage, paid taxes, did his duty. Bought a little two-story row house in a recently constructed development in the forest. She wanted to get married, so Ove proposed. She wanted children, which was fine with him, said Ove. And their understanding was that children should live in row housing developments among other children.