Backman plays the story for both cynicism and hope, and his skill makes both hard, but not impossible, to resist.
"But when girls are scared of the dark they're scared of guys." Margaret Atwood said it better and with more authority decades ago. "When guys are scared of the dark they're scared of ghosts and monsters," he writes. This is an interesting tactic for a novel in our cultural moment of sensitivity, and it can feel cumbersome. The important thing to remember is that hockey is pure. And Lord knows they've all had a rough time of it. Actually, the bigots and bullies are also generous and selfless, in certain circumstances. Sure, many of Beartown's residents are bigots and bullies. Backman wants readers to know that things are complicated. Nearly all make poor decisions, rolling the town closer and closer to tragedy. Several characters get played by a Machiavellian local politician who gets the club reinstated.
Some Beartown athletes follow, some don't. Each has previously been shaped by the local hockey club, but that club is now being defunded and resources reallocated to the club of a rival town. Grim in tone, it features an overstocked cast of characters, all of whom are struggling for self-definition. Sometimes he overreaches and words that sound pretty together don't hold up to scrutiny. Often, he uses this same elegance to slyly misdirect his readers. Swedish novelist Backman loves an aphorism and is very good at them evident in all his novels is an apparent ability to state a truth about humanity with breathtaking elegance. Shockwaves from the incidents in Beartown (2017) shake an economically depressed hockey town in this latest from the author of A Man Called Ove.
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