Bear Town: Fredrik Backman

Hi friends!

Today I kicked off non-fiction November with a lighthearted read – The Art of Southern Charm by Patricia Altshul. So far I’m enjoying the lighthearted lifestyle guide (even if some of the advice is seriously dated!), and it’s providing a welcome reprieve from the cold weather and short days here in Boston.

But we aren’t here to talk about a lighthearted lifestyle guide. We are here to talk about the opposite kind of read – Bear Town by Fredrik Backman. This was a heavy book, there’s no way around it. It was also an incredibly moving and important book.

“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”

Bear Town tells the story of a small, out of the way town, that is obsessed with hockey. As someone who grew up in a Texas suburb with a sub-par high school football team that everyone was still obsessed with, I can connect with the mania that takes hold of Bear Town as their junior hockey team finally turns the corner and becomes the team to beat. But the momentum is stopped, and the town torn apart, when the star player sexually assaults the daughter of the team’s manager.

This book is a social commentary wrapped around multiple character studies, and the thoughtful, diligent, and heart wrenching manner in which Backman explores the difficult issues in the story is remarkable. Sexual assault in novels can sometimes feel like a production – something exaggerated and stereotyped – but that is not what we find in Bear Town. Rather, the assault is devastatingly relatable, the circumstances all too common, the response so familiar it is unbearable.

“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.”

I cannot recommend this book enough. I recently devoured Know My Name by Chanel Miller, which dealt with a very real story of survival at the hands of a public assault, and the lessons I learned through that book about the difficulty of coming forward, the revictimization that comes from telling your story, and the heaviness of the doubt coming from those who choose not to believe, was every bit as present in Backman’s Bear Town. Do yourself a favor and read this book.

I'll leave you with one (long) quote that has really stuck with me:

“Words are small things. No one means any harm by them, they keep saying that. Everyone is just doing their job. The police say it all the time. 'I'm just doing my job here.' That's why no one asks what the boy did; as soon as the girl starts to talk they interrupt her instead with questions about what she did. Did she go up the stairs ahead of him or behind him? Did she lie down on the bed voluntarily or was she forced? Did she unbutton her own blouse? Did she kiss him? No? Did she kiss him back, then? Had she been drinking alcohol? Had she smoked marijuana? Did she say no? Was she clear about that? Did she scream loudly enough? Did she struggle hard enough? Why didn't she take photographs of her bruises right away? Why did she run from the party instead of saying anything to the other guests? They have to gather all the information, they say, when they ask the same question ten times in different ways in order to see if she changes her answer. This is a serious allegation, they remind her, as if it's the allegation that's the problem. She is told all the things she shouldn't have done: She shouldn't have waited so long before going to the police. She shouldn't have gotten rid of the clothes she was wearing. Shouldn't have showered. Shouldn't have drunk alcohol. Shouldn't have put herself in that situation. Shouldn't have gone into the room, up the stairs, given him the impression. If only she hadn't existed, then none of this would have happened, why didn't she think of that? She's fifteen, above the age of consent, and he's seventeen, but he's still 'the boy' in every conversation. She's 'the young woman.' Words are not small things.”

Keep reading,

L.S.