Beartown – A Rich and Deliciously Complex Fiction about Human Nature

It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.

For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. David asked what he meant by that, and Sune replied: That most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.

On the outset, Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s stories seem pretty simple. The characters appear to be a caricature or a stereotype. But gradually, as Mr. Backman’s masterful storytelling technique kicks in, the characters very much comes alive, packed up with all the nuance, depth, and fragility of human nature. The author’s works are often addressed as ‘uplifting’. But he isn’t a hack ideologue or driven by a misguided sense of morality so as to entirely cover up the real horrors of life for feel-good moralization. Emotional pain, loneliness and irreparable sadness are the constants ailing Backman’s characters. Yet the deep empathy he has for the people (even for the grumpiest) and his sense of positivity finds ways to slowly push down the gloomy factors, channeling us through the whole spectrum of human experience. The movie version of ‘A Man Called Ove’ first introduced me to Fredrik Backman. And since then, I have devoured his novels with a relish, and got deeply addicted to his magic for creating richly imagined, believable literary characters.

Beartown is proposed as a trilogy, set in a tiny, frozen, and economically faltering hockey-obsessed Swedish town. The novel, released in September 2016 in Sweden, was considered to be different from Backman’s previous novels, since it was bit darker and eschewed his usual tone of gentle whimsicality and quirkiness. In fact, Beartown’s first chapter opens with a bleak passage: “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there”. What Backman promises in the first chapter do happen in the end. Although the story here is tightly coiled to keep us on-the-edge, and delves into the emotional depths of individuals that one might not reckon in reality.  The first-third of the novel is entirely devoted to set-up the characters, steadily observing the idiosyncrasies and universalities associated with the proud hockey town, north of Sweden.

For decades, there’s nothing much going on in the community except ice hockey. Jobs are fast disappearing. People are moving to nearby larger town, the abandoned isolated houses are getting swallowed up by the forests. But the residents pin their hopes on the hockey team. The town’s struggle to stay alive and desire for resounding success lies in the hands of hard-fighting young sportsmen. Every little boy in the town learns to play in the ice as soon as they walked. Beartown’s junior team actually has a shot at the national hockey championship that year. When the novel starts the whole town is preparing to support their team in the semi-finals played at home. At the very center of the town’s hope is star-player Kevin, the obsessively motivated and incredibly talented 17 year old boy, hailing from a prominent family. Peter Andersson, the general manager of hockey team, was once a golden boy like Kevin. He went professional and made it to the National Hockey League in Canada. On his mentor/coach Sune’s insistence, Peter has moved back to the native town with his strong-willed lawyer wife Kira and two children – 15-year old Maya and 12-year old Leo.

Author Fredrik Backman

If the town wins this year Junior Championship, there might get a hockey academy and tourists may begin flocking to Beartown, revitalizing the jobs and business. The rich sponsors and powerful board members deliriously discuss the prospects awaiting the town. But they also pose a challenging proposition to Peter. While Peter mulls over the board members’ decision of sacking coach Sune, more devastating events unfold. With each darker turn, the town’s falsehoods, ugly group mentality and other ominous elements of human condition are broached with clarity and complexity. Yet, what sets apart Backman’s tale from other small-town witch-hunt narratives is his ability to not simply wallow in horror. He never shies away from exhibiting the emotional and physical violence inflicted upon the characters. However, the basic humanity is never downplayed for the sake of proposing a half-baked polemic statement. Backman keeps on finding the beauty of human spirit, all the way through the novel’s darker, heavier times. 

The culture of hockey and few other strange native mannerisms may make Beartown a singular literary atmosphere. But the characters inhabiting it and the choices they make are certainly universal (‘what is a community? It is the sum total of our choices.’). We can take the conformity, homophobia, indifferent politics, sexism, and bullying of Beartown and equate it with any other flawed community around the world. By adding layers after layers into the story and characters that’s never ailed with illogicality, Backman continually draws the readers in and making us comprehend the full implications of each action, words, and worrying silence. Before picking up the book, I wondered whether it’s an underdog sports novel, and after browsing through the synopsis, I felt it could be a lacerating depiction of sexual assault and the ensuing trauma. But it’s not about just one thing; it’s the kind of satisfying fiction with a huge heart that examines everything from gender, loyalty, parenting, relationships, adolescence, collective psyche, culture, etc.

Of course, Fredrik Backman acutely depicts the culture of youth sports, the commitment and loyalty demanded of the players, and the way covetous sponsors treat the players. He also crushingly conveys the mind-image of a woman’s body under attack (“For the perpetrator, rape lasts just a matter of minutes. For the victim, it never stops”), and unflinchingly delineates the culpability of the rapist and those who add their voice to victim-blaming. But as a fine novelist, Backman’s concerns aren’t strictly ideological (except for one odd moment where he strongly denunciates the ‘evils that men do’ in the name of religion, politics, sports, etc); he rather casts a humane eye on the warped and formidable aspects of our communities. It is said that ‘everyone has their own version of truth’. Through the town’s culture of sports and its inhabitants’ reaction to the sexual assault, the author peruses everyone’s truth. Even though, these personal viewpoints never muddle or fuzzes over the difference between right and wrong (such writing technique turn the stock villains into complicated humans, and hence all the more terrifying). At the same time, Beartown isn’t about the conflict between right and wrong. Backman includes many characters caught in the middle, struggling from within to choose one side over the other. In this aspect I liked the characterization of tenacious junior-team coach David (a guy we neither love nor hate) and elderly determined bar-owner Ramona (whom we eventually regard with teary-eyed adoration).

Most importantly, Backman doesn’t confine the assaulted girl to only occupy the position of victim. The extent of the girl’s mental damage is painfully presented, but she also happens to be strong and loving girl. She makes great effort to not allow her life to be defined by that single ugly moment. In fact, the novel is full of such very strong characters who preserve their basic humanity, in the face of gruesome activities. The prose occasionally leans into sentimentality, yet it doesn’t get fully drenched. To the author’s credit, by the end Beartown is not about the oft envisioned darker side of human behavior, but about the oft unheralded elements of our race: the resilience of an empowered individual; the camaraderie and unbreakable bonds of friendship and family; and staunch belief in fulfilling one’s dreams. Beartown may not be the perfect literary treat that's unparalleled in terms of style and scope. Nevertheless, it is deeply satisfying, and the genuine emotional wallop it instills upon us will definitely stay for some time.