Real People: September 2020 Book + Bottle Pairing
This post is a bit delayed because I was saving it to correspond with the release of Fredrik Backman’s latest novel, Anxious People, which is being released today, Tuesday September 8th. I am such a huge fan of A Man Called Ove and Backman’s other character-driven novels, that I’ve been anxiously awaiting this one! I knew it had to be my September pairing, so thanks for your patience until we were allowed to release it. Fun tidbit: new books are always released on Tuesdays!
From the title of this month’s book, Anxious People, we can tell a bit about the premise of the story. I think in our particular uncertain times, we’re all feeling a bit anxious and can relate to this aspect of the characters in the book. However this book isn’t a downer piece about negative folks. It’s hilarious, it’s perceptive, it’s relatable, and it's deep. Backman’s writing takes the worst aspects of people and makes them comical. He balances his characters’ inner tragedies with heroic growth. He’s somehow able to make us laugh and cry simultaneously.
This book falls into several genres: it’s a whodunnit mystery, it’s a comic novel, and it’s a literary character drama. I love that it’s a work in translation (from Swedish by Neil Smith). It’s just what we need to keep the mood light while still reading quality literature.
THE BOOK
Fredrik Backman has become known for his dynamic character building. In A Man Called Ove, he took the grumpiest, saddest old man and somehow made him a lovable hero. His recurring character of Britt-Marie is the worst, until we come to know her and relate to her fears and anxieties and then we start to like her, too. Now, Backman has written a story about a whole crew of unlikeable people that are trapped in a room together - idiots he calls them. The premise is that during a busy open house, a failed bank robber enters the space taking all the prospective home buyers hostage in the small apartment. Stuck together on this tiny stage, we watch as the characters navigate their own anxieties and start to show their true colors - who they portray on the outside isn’t necessarily who they really are. There’s a twist around every corner that will keep you on your toes.
Backman’s real talent is being able to call the reader (and all of his characters) “idiots” while simultaneously redeeming humanity through their stories. This message is more important now than ever - we’re socially distanced and it seems like many of us are now afraid of people just for existing. We judge everyone all the time - the way they wear their mask, what they’re willing to do in public versus what they use as an excuse to stay home, how close they stand when they talk to us. Yet inside, we’re all struggling with the same anxieties, trying to live our lives to our best abilities, and really just make it through the day.
A few of Backman’s books tinker with the idea of suicide, and in this one too, there’s a peripheral scene where this sort of tragedy unfolds. I think it’s this sort of extreme tragedy that places the rest of the anxieties in the book in context. We never really know what someone else is going through. They too have fears, heartbreak, anxieties, and are just trying to get through another day.
In conclusion, we’re given a sense that while we’re all so different and complicated, we’re all really the same, we’re all on the same team, and we’re all idiots together. We make life better, together.
The truth? The truth about all this? The truth is that this was a story about many different things, but most of all about idiots. Because we’re doing the best we can, we really are. We’re trying to be grown-up and love each other and understand how the hell you’re supposed to insert USB leads. We’re looking for something to cling on to, something to fight for, something to look forward to. We’re all doing all we can to teach our children how to swim. We have all of this in common, yet most of us remain strangers, we never know what we do to each other, how your life is affected by mine…But when you get home this evening, when this day is over and the night takes us, allow yourself a deep breath. Because we made it through this day as well…There’ll be another one along tomorrow.
— Anxious People, Fredrik Backman
THE WINE
It’s California wine month, so I wanted to highlight a California wine with our September pairing. I wanted something a bit nervy to go with the anxious energy of the book, but something that also was not quite what it seemed on the outside. Nervy is a term sometimes used to describe wines that seem to not sit still on your palate, instead racing around with what feels like nervous energy. Wines that could be considered nervy include riesling and sauvignon blanc. I found this gorgeous bottle of Edna Valley Sauvignon Blanc and knew immediately it was the best pick.
Many California wines end up being aged in oak to give them that revered rich style that California has come to represent. In fact, the term Fumé Blanc was created in California to describe the then new Sauvignon Blancs aged in oak, made by Robert Mondavi in the late 1960s. These oaked whites gained popularity for a while because they symbolized a departure from the sweet white wine that had previously held favor. Now, as we’re back in a dry wine movement, and almost all quality white wines on the market are dry wines, this moniker is no longer needed, and neither is the oak. You can find dry, crisp white wines that don’t need sugar or oak to make them better. The Tangent Sauvignon Blanc in this month’s pairing is dry, unoaked, citrusy, and fresh tasting. It’s nervy!
Edna Valley in the Central Coast is California’s coolest wine growing area which makes it perfect for producing crisp, racy white wines. This one has notes of zesty citrus, passionfruit and guava backed by bright acidity and chalky minerality. It’s got the tropical fruit we love in a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the refined elegance of a Sancerre (French Sauvignon Blanc).
The real reason this bottle is such a perfect fit is how closely the wine production mirrors the people in Backman’s novel. All the wine comes from the same vineyard, Paragon, but the grapes come from distinct blocks in the vineyard, are made into separate wines, and then are blended together. Look at the label - the gorgeous art represents a cohesive whole made up of distinctive components. These components are the blocks in the vineyard or the characters in the novel. When building a vineyard, the winegrowers find that particular areas have their own characteristics that create differences in the finished wines. Perhaps the aspect over here faces the sun a bit more so that batch of grapes will ripen more, or on the slope of that hill over there, the wind rushes through and makes the grape struggle a bit more. You could make a wine from the vineyard as a whole which would combine all these elements or you could pull grapes from just one of them which would give that wine that very distinctive character - more ripeness, perhaps, or more concentrated flavors from the struggling grapes. How Tangent is made is that they make individual wines from each little block in the vineyard. Then after experiencing the unique characteristics of each wine, they blend them together to get the best representation of the vineyard.
I loved how similar this felt to the characters in the book that all had such distinctive personalities and all brought their own type of anxiety to the situation, but at the end, all together, the characters have intertwined and affected each other to create such an amazing novel. Sometimes the the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.