My Friends

Louisa is a teenager who has bounced through several violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her. She's still reeling from the overdose death of a close friend.

One day, Louisa sneaks into an auction house to see a famous painting: three young people on a pier, the piece known as "The One of the Sea." There she runs into the artist, C. Jat, a 39-year-old painter who is terminally ill. As his final act, he asks Ted, one of the boys in the picture, to find Louisa and give her the painting.

That kicks off a cross-country trip to uncover the story of the painting and the group behind it. The book switches between two timelines: one summer with four childhood friends, and the present, 25 years later, when the canvas has become famous.

Fredrik Backman, author of A Man Called Ove, mixes grief and humor, and the unlikely pairing of Louisa and Ted carries much of the story.