Preeta Chag

Pub by: First Published by Atria Book (May 2025)

“The most dangerous place in earth is inside us.”

‘My Friends’ is about the inside. What we feel. What we yearn for. What we gain. What we lose. The agonies and the ecstasies.

“Art needs friends.”

Using ‘creativity’ as a base, the book, flitting back and forth in time, is an extremely poignant tale of four friends on a vast panorama of longings, hopes, bonds, feelings, and walking the path together.

The book begins in the present with Louisa, who daringly breaks into an auction to see the painting, the postcard of which has been her life companion at the foster homes she grew up in. ‘The One of the Sea’ by C. Jat.

“Art is coincidence.”

On the run from security and police from the museum, she collides with a seemingly homeless guy on the footpath.. He is, in fact, the artist whose painting is the essence of the book. And so from there, begins her sojourn into the life of the four friends who are the soul of the painting she feels one with.

Joar. Ted. Ali. And the artist himself. The four friends: The story traces their lives: of finding solace and hope in each other, sitting on the pier each day with a promise to meet the next day. It is a story of friendship and giving. Of sacrifice and benevolence. Their homes are fractured, their lives seem hopeless. But they have each other to be alive. To smile. To laugh. To meet ‘tomorrow’.

Each character is introduced with a purpose, knitting itself into the fabric of the tale. Especially Christian and his mother. One who instills the artist with the confidence to embrace art. And his mother, who works as godmother, always guiding and helping. Interestingly, the characters’ names are revealed unhurriedly. Ted’s name as the friend is revealed in Chapter 8. The artist, whose painting has spawned this book, his name is revealed much later in the book. Kimkim.

Fredrick Backman, very attractively, completes certain narrations by describing actions that will happen in the future and gives the reader the endings. “One day she will be riding in a black car in a bustling city far away, and suddenly she will yell at the chauffeur to stop.”

He uses words like a chisel,… etching emotions on starkness. The writing style is very matter-of-fact, but unfailing in its wrenching, stirring quality.

The book is about embracing the nothings, the emptiness, the silence and finding a serenity in it

“Art is your homeland.”

Heartbreak and desolation line each page. But there is hope and beauty. A sliver of shine comes out through the darkest of clouds.

As the book’s dedication says it:

“To anyone who is young and wants to create something. Do it.”