Fredrik Backman, 2016
I learned about this book from his Instagram posts. There are so many people who love Beartown and send him pictures of hockey jerseys with #16 and Ovich on them. I was intrigued because I love everything he’s written, so I borrowed it from the library. Well, it’s not my favorite book of his. There are two more books after Beartown in the trilogy: ‘Us Against You,’ and ‘The Winners.’
It’s very, very intense. A hockey town in Sweden called Beartown that live, eat, breathe hockey. They have a star player, Kevin, son of the richest couple in town who sponsor the hockey team. The team wins the semi-final, Kevin has a party at his home, rapes the GM’s daughter, Maya. Maya tells no one until 5 days later when she can’t hold it in any longer. She tells her parents, wonderful Peter and Kira, and they blow up. Call the police, the police take Kevin off the bus right before the final. The town blows up at the family. Much, much drama ensues. There are some real heroes on the team, but the rest are just thugs.
The heroes are, first and foremost, Amat. He’s a poor one whose mother, Fatima, raised him to always do the right thing. He gets promoted to the team when they see how hard he works and how fast he can skate. He’s the reason they won the semi-final. He loves Maya, the girl who got raped. He knows the truth because he went up to Kevin’s room and saw it happening. Against all the money and promises of Kevin’s dad, Amat tells the town the truth. He almost gets beaten to death, but Bobo, the big mean kid who started out being the worst towards him, ends up defending Amat. That’s the best part – they end up friends. There’s also Benji, the best one on the team, #16 – Ovich, who is Kevin’s life-long friend and the reason Kevin plays so well. Benji knows the truth, too. He refused to take part in the evening’s partying when he saw what direction it was going, and he left the party. He saw Maya out in the forest on her way home – scared, hurt, and traumatized. He was going to help her but recognized her fear. He let her be, but knows the truth, even though he never rats on Kevin, just keeps it a secret. He also has a secret he has kept from everyone – that he is gay.
The book is very, very dramatic. The characters and dialogue and settings are so well-drawn. He’s such a good writer, but I had a hard time with this one. Lots of hockey violence and then evil thoughts and actions by some of the players and parents and children, etc. In the end, the good outweighs the bad, but it was really bad. His style is sort of irritating in this book, too. Almost all of the book involves telling a bit of the future but not all of it. There is a lot of philosophizing, too, about hockey, parenting, small town mentality.
My favorite part of the book is the poem a nurse spoke to Fatima when she had Amat, and the scrap of paper on which she wrote the words, and which he has kept for 16 years:
“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway.
“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway.
“All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow.
“Do good anyway.”
Amat truly lived those words. That’s the best part of the book – Amat.