Day 336: Beartown

Oh man this book surprised me. When first reading the synopsis, I thought, 'Oh no, a book about a small-town hockey team? I couldn't care less.' But from the first lines I read, I was hooked. Fredrik Backman is able to present an incredible range of human experience through this seemingly limited scope. His style is perfectly paced to capture the many facets of human life that come together in Beartown, from the young, eager new hockey players with something to prove, to the sponsors who hold all the power, the parents in the stands who have as much skin in the game as their children, to the children who feel their whole lives are defined by the sport that holds their town enraptured, regardless of how they feel about it. There's the drunkard who wishes he had been something great, the once great who longs for a time when things were simpler, the old coach on his way out, and everything in between. 'Beartown' captures a holistic view of a community on the verge of greatness or complete deterioration. What could be so important about a sport that the whole town hangs on every goal scored? It's only their pride, their economy, their very survival.

"It means everything. That's all."

'Beartown' explores the consequences and triumphs of an obsessed community. The sacrifices they make, the secrets they keep, the scars they hide, but also those scant few beautiful moments where everyone comes together at once. Those moments where no matter who you are in Beartown, as long as you're in the stands or keeping score, everyone gets to cheer or cry together. Right up until the moment where everyone is forced to pick a side, on and off the ice. Nobody can completely separate their time in the rink from their time in the real world, as much as they would like to keep their hockey in the pristine bubble it demands. Pride and loyalty, family and friendship, money, and the things that could never be bought. All the things that make a person who they are vie for power in the most unassuming place on Earth. It asks, what does it mean to be a team? Who decides what a place or a people stand for? What is culture?

"... culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit."

This is one of those books that feels less like something created and more like something discovered. As if Beartown and all the people who live there and everything that happens actually exists somewhere out there. Backman's vision is so comprehensive that you can't help but feel like it must. The story was always there, built somewhere deep in the woods out of the pieces that make up human lives, and all he did was put them together for us in a wonderful order with a discerning eye. I can't recommend this book enough, especially if you were like me, a person who sees absolutely no appeal whatsoever in the lives of a small hockey town. It was written to make you care about something nobody in their right mind should care about, and that makes it valuable in a way I can't even express.

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley