Beartown Derivative but Redeems Itself

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BEARTOWN (20160

By Fredrik Backman

Atria Books, 415 pages.

★★★

Here's a rarity: a Fredrick Backman book I merely liked instead of loving. It tells of a small Swedish town whose better days are in the past. Beartown lies in the sticks, it's cold, its economic base has withered, and more of its population struggles than thrives. In the States we'd call it a "tough" town. There is even a gang of black-jacketed men that frequent the local bar and menace everyone except the bar's owner, Ramona.

Beartown doesn't have much going for it—except hockey—a stand-in for what passes for civic pride. Hockey rules in Beartown and its best players are idolized, even when still in their teens. Seventeen-year-old Kevin Erdhal is a god on ice—one destined for the NHL, the former fate of Beartown's general manager Peter Andersson. Kevin and his brilliant coach David might even bring a national juniors championship to Beartown, which might mean a new rink, a hockey academy, and needed economic revitalization. It's practically a given that David's former mentor, Sune, will be fired as A-level coach and that he and Kevin will transition to A hockey.

A quick word on Swedish hockey: There are six levels of competitive hockey and things get serious when a player advances to the highly competitive top junior leagues for players aged (mostly) 16-21. The best junior players go A-level (for HockeyAllvenskan), a steppingstone to professional hockey for elite players. This is important for this story, as Swedish hockey is generally a club sport rather than one identified with schools. They have presidents, executive boards, well-heeled sponsors, and general managers, not just a coach or two.

Bang… bang … bang…. That's the sound of hockey pucks smacking up against the rink boards and it's also Backman's cue to look for chips in the ice that misdirect good intentions, good manners, good values, and basic dignity. Eventually. The first 170 pages of Beartown are derivative of Britt-Marie Was Here, but with a different town, older kids, hockey instead of soccer, and sans quirky Britt-Marie. After page 170, the novel turns darker and that's what saves it. Of hockey Backman writes, "It's only a game. It can only change people's lives." But not necessarily in good ways.

After page 170, Beartown ceases to be as much about hockey the sport and more about the culture of hockey—one that turns boys into skating warriors, transforms them into a wolf pack of spoiled brats, sows the seeds of misogyny, and so robs them of their childhood that they develop adult habits—mostly the bad ones. Beartown's adults have plenty of bad habits to pass on: alcoholism, domestic strife, hooliganism, ruthless ambition, emotional absenteeism, and a whole lot of stuff that falls into the category of what is often dubbed "the hidden injuries of class."

Backman once again assembles memorable characters. On the youth side there is Kevin, the hulking blue-collar defenseman Bobo, the pampered William Flyt, and Kevin's best friend, the sullen and secretive Benji. There's also a quartet of 15-year-olds: Peter's daughter Maya, her BFF Ana, immigrant Amat, and his best bud, the pudgy Zacharias. On the adult side there is Peter, a former star and present-day milquetoast; his passionate lawyer wife, Kira; Amat's single-parent mother, Fatima; and a wide ensemble of venomous hockey moms, amoral sponsors, local lowlifes, a teacher growing wiser by the moment, and a trio of protective sisters. The salty-tongued Ramona, though, is hard to resist. A sample Ramona rant: "Keep your trap shut when I'm talking! Fucking men! YOU'RE the problem! Religion doesn't fight, guns don't kill, and you need to be fucking clear that hockey has never raped anyone! But do you know who do? ...MEN! It's always fucking men!"

Of course, even Ramona is cribbed from the character Bank in Britt-Marie Was Here and Beartown is that book's Borg [town name, not Star Trek characters] set in the woods. Objectively speaking, Beartown is more pastiche than panache. But it does raise big questions, not the least of which is that its strip-away-the-crap look at sports obsession is like a high stick to the nose. If all a town cares about is its junior hockey team, does it have any values at all? Backman invites us to extend that metaphor. And so we should.

Rob Weir