Beartown

 

Beartown by Fredrik Backman

Fiction

2018 Washington Square Press (first published in 2016)

Finished on March 7, 2021

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding)

Publisher's Blurb:

The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove returns with a dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever-encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.

A Gentleman in Moscow. All the Light We Cannot See. State of Wonder. City of Thieves. Cutting for Stone. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. The Help. The Sparrow. The Book Thief. A Prayer for Owen Meany. Beach Music. Plainsong. What do all of these books have in common with Beartown? They are simply a few of my all-time favorite literary novels, most of which took several chapters before I became fully invested in their stories. They are the sort of books that are filled with memorable characters and plots that do more than just entertain. I was not expecting to add Beartown to this collection of favorites, but I have!

I was born in Ontario, Canada and yet I have never been to a hockey game, nor have I watched it on TV. Even when the U.S. team beat the Soviet Union, winning the gold medal in the 1980 Winter Olympics, I only saw the highlights. So when I first heard that Beartown was about a hockey team, I wasn't in the least bit interested, even though I had read and loved A Man Called Ove. I also read and enjoyed My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry, but I wasn't convinced I would feel the same about Beartown. 

When I found out about the HBO series based on this book, I decided it was time to give it a try so I could read it before watching the show. Reading other reviews and comments, I knew it would take a while to get interested in the story, so I was pleased that it only took me a few chapters before I got a handle on all the characters (and there are A LOT!) and their relationships with one another. Thankfully, I wasn't required to suffer through pages of detailed explanations of the rules and regulations of hockey. Quite honestly, Beartown could be about a small town football, basketball or baseball team (although I would have eagerly jumped on a book about baseball), since the focus is less on the game and more on the dynamics of the team and coaching staff, as well as the members of the community. 

In any case, I loved the book and I'm so glad I stuck with it through those early chapters. There are so many great characters, many of whom I came to love (and worry about), especially Maya, Ana, Amat, Benji and Bobo. Backman's narrative is linear with numerous points of view and some readers might find this constant shifting of perspectives jarring or clunky, but I appreciated getting to follow each of the main characters' feelings and reactions, which gives the book a more intimate experience than it might have with just one or two points of view. 

So there you go. I have my second 5-star rating for 2021. I love to read and enjoy light and humorous books, as well as spellbinding thrillers and mysteries, but it is such a joy to read a provocative work of contemporary fiction. 

Highly recommend!

Kirkus Reviews says it best:

Backman is a masterful writer, his characters familiar yet distinct, flawed yet heroic.... There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor.... This is about more than youth sports; it's part coming-of-age novel, part study of moral failure, and finally a chronicle of groupthink in which an unlikely hero steps forward to save more than one person from self-destruction. A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.