Tom is an employee at the train company where Ove's father and Ove both worked. He has a reputation for being exceptionally mean, selfish, and violent. He never forgives Ove for deciding to turn in a wallet he found with a large sum of cash in it and later tries to steal Ove's watch.
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Tom Character Timeline in A Man Called Ove
The timeline below shows where the character Tom appears in A Man Called Ove. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
5. A Man Called Ove
...railway with his father after school. When Ove was nine, his father sent him with Tom, the only person that Ove didn't like, to clean out a broken-down train car. Tom...
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...office. Ove's father took Ove's hand and they walked together to the office, listening to Tom shouting angrily behind them. At the office, Ove's father refused to tell the receptionist if...
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8. A Man Called Ove and a Pair of His Father's Old Footprints
...and less as time went on. Ove had no friends and no enemy except for Tom, who, after being promoted to foreman, set out to make Ove's life miserable.
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Two years after Ove's father died, Ove and Tom were the only ones present when money disappeared out of a train carriage. Nobody believed...
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Throughout the afternoon, two young men who worked with Tom accused Ove. The next morning, the foreman fired Ove. Tom hissed "thief" at Ove as...
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12. A Man Who Was Ove and One Day He Had Enough
The next morning, Ove passed Tom in the hallway at work. Tom loudly called Ove a thief. Ove ignored him, went...
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