Beartown

 

Beartown – by Fredrik Backman

I’ve never quite understood how some people can be so fanatically devoted to sports. I guess it’s one thing to be a major sports fan of a professional team with a lot of visibility like the New England Patriots or the New York Yankees, but I’ve seen rabid parents go ballistic watching their 6-year-olds playing soccer.  Not only does it seem quite puerile to me, but it pains me to feel what some of these poor kids’ lives are like at home. If these parents are that idiotic and demanding in public, what are their attitudes towards their children behind closed doors?

Beartown is one of those towns where every single person is obsessed with a sport. In this case, hockey. Beartown is a fictitious blue collar town somewhere in Sweden (where the author is from) that is in the middle of a “forest”, yet this story could have easily taken place in Canada or the Northern U.S. The town of Beartown is pretty much dying. There’s a factory that employs most of the town, yet it seems every year that more and more people are being laid off. The only thing this town ever looks forward to is Junior Hockey. We’re talking 15–17-year-old boys. No, the adults don’t play hockey anymore, but just about all of them did during their younger days and they all now religiously follow their sons and grandsons. The obsession with hockey is unbelievable. You get the feeling that toddlers learn how to ice skate before they can spoon feed themselves.  You know it’s bad when many of the kids (players) and adults have to repeatedly throw up on the day of the big game.

One night after the “big game”, the tension essentially boils over. A crime is committed by one of the players causing the whole town to reel. The theme of this story is, sadly, not too foreign: If a star player or a renowned celebrity commits a crime, can’t everyone sort of look the other way?  Or proclaim his innocence even though most probably know better?  If a star player can’t play hockey anymore in a hockey town like Beartown, is there anything for anyone to look forward to ever again?

The story itself isn’t too rosy. It seems like everyone in this town, kids and adults, aren’t very happy. Even those who succeed in the town’s sport have so much pressure on them, that they never feel as though they’re good enough. There’s an awful lot of unemployed adults in this dying town, and it seems like even though jobs aren’t available, alcohol certainly is. I lost track of how many suicides and/or alcoholics were in this story. Author Fredrik Backman, though, tells a great story and keeps his readers interested. I would guess there are about 30 “regular” characters in this story (about half kid and half adult) yet Backman does a stellar job ensuring his reader can keep track with who is who.

After I finished this book, I learned the author has penned at least two follow ups.  As I’m writing this, I just started the next “Beartown” book titled “Us Against You”. From what I can tell, it picks up almost immediately where this book ends. So if you come across that one, I would advise you to read this one first.

I’ve loved the few books I’ve read by this author, and this was a very well told story even though the subject matter was a bit depressing. It also makes me thankful that I never pressured my kids too much to be too “great” at sports.