Illustration by Maya Winshell
With winter break approaching, leisure reading will once again become a possibility due to the absence of class readings and assignments. If you are looking for a book to pass the cold days of this vacation, Fredrik Backman’s novel “Beartown” might be the perfect option.
Originally written in Swedish, “Beartown” is a contemporary fiction novel that tells the story of a small village in Sweden. It is centered around the town’s junior hockey team which plans to compete in the national semifinals. Their team has not always been successful in the past, but finally has a chance at winning due to the new players on the team with unique strengths and abilities. However, when a community member is raped, the team’s success and popularity are jeopardized, which forces the residents of Beartown to have to pick hockey or morality. The story focuses on many of the teenagers both on and off the hockey team, yet looks at the lives of many of the adults too.
Backman captures the town’s passion for hockey through a collective perspective, touching on a different character for a few short chapters at a time. Never does this choice become too overwhelming. The characters’ idiosyncrasies are distinct enough so that their own voices are heard even through third person narration. Not every character is given a name; sometimes they are just referred to by their relation to another character. For example, the president of the hockey club is only ever referred to as the President, and one character’s coworker is always referred to as her colleague, even though these characters both play prominent roles in the text. Each character still offers something important to the plot, as well as the fictional town. By the end, it is easy to appreciate each character equally, even if you do not relate to all of them.
Beartown is more than a book about hockey, so do not look past this recommendation just because you might not be interested in sports. Despite knowing next to nothing about hockey, Beartown was easy for me to follow. Backman does an exceptional job of describing the games with rich, digestible details without making them excessively full of hockey-related jargon. As Backman tells the story of the national semifinal game and the aftermath, he begins and ends many of the chapters with tiny insights into life, sports and human nature.
Available new from Amazon or used from Powell’s, both for around $11, “Beartown” tells a perfectly gripping winter story with just enough drama to keep you hooked. Plus, if you enjoy “Beartown,” you can read the sequel, “Us Against You,” which grapples with the existence of the team more than its reputation.
About the Author
