Ashes And Memories on a Train

I just finished the book My Friends | Fredrik Backman, it was highly recommended. Not only did I read it but I want to recommend it too.

It's about making your way by train, making art and what you should do with the rest of your life. In the back story, as told by a now adult Ted, who 20 years ago was among four teenagers who put their heads together to help the artist among them get the supplies he needs to paint his first picture, entering it into a local contest, and becoming famous. This picture of the ocean has become world famous and valuable. "Worth Millions!" As the teenagers prophesize on their quest to buy paint and canvas.

So, this artist grows up to be world famous. As an adult in the book, he meets a young girl making graffiti on an alley wall of a gallery where his own art is being honored. The show includes his first famous work, the ocean painting from his early years. He is moved, he can see she is really good while she does not think she is worth anything. She confesses, without her passport, "I would not even count as a person". He goes to great lengths to help her believe in herself, to accept being discovered as a great artist in her own right, and to get on with the rest of her life. As an adult the famous artist enlists his own childhood friends to help make it so. One of these friends is Ted.

Ted, who always carried a flame for the famous artists, is enlisted to take the young graffiti artist on a train journey of discovery. Ted reluctantly tells her the story of how 20 years ago, four friends made "art so beautiful it makes you too big for your body" to look at it. I was riveted to find out what happened to the now adult childhood friends. The stories are both sad and hopeful. Ted says, there was enough laughter in each episode to make life worth living despite the sadness.

My big take away

When I read a book like this it reminds me of episodes in my own life. In this book the characters lose a box of ashes on the train. That took me back 30 years to when my sister and I spread our own brothers' ashes on a beach without much of a plan. I made a sculptured sand castle with his ashes included. At sunset the tide came in and washed away our brother on a beach he loved. The book brought that memory right back to me like it just happened.