Due to laziness and a lack of free time, Beartown, a 2017 novel by the Swedish author Fredrik Backman, sat untouched on my nightstand for about three years before I picked it up over Christmas break. Once I did, I couldn’t put it down, a feeling I’ve really missed since becoming so busy in college (and was, admittedly, in high school, too).
I bought the book after my junior year in high school because I’m a big hockey fan, and I knew it centered on a small-town hockey team. I remember being struck by quotes from it then circulating on Twitter, like “Some people say hockey is like religion, but that’s wrong. Hockey is like faith. Religion is something between you and other people, it’s full of interpretations and theories and opinions. But faith . . . that’s just between you and God.” The beautiful but limited selections of text I’d encountered led me to believe that Beartown was going to be a charming story about a failing hockey club and its rise to success.
For the first 100 or so pages, I wasn’t totally wrong. Backman begins with the Beartown Hockey Club’s preparation for its junior team’s biggest game in decades. The perspective shifts among characters like Kevin Erdahl, the 17-year-old phenom who is being scouted by NHL teams; Amat, the 15-year-old immigrant with an unbelievable work ethic; Benji Ovich, the closeted gay player with three sisters; and Maya Andersson, the general manager’s 15-year-old daughter, who couldn’t care less about hockey. Though I had just been introduced to them, I quickly became invested in their lives. I felt like I was part of their tight-knight community, and I wanted Beartown to win as much as they did.
The underdog team pulls it off. Kevin, whose oft-absent parents are away again, throws a party at his house to celebrate. Maya and her best friend, Ana, attend, and spend the night drinking with the team. Then Kevin and one of his linemates make a bet that ends in horrifying fashion: Kevin violently rapes Maya, leaving her physically and mentally traumatized.
From this point forward, Backman explores who has value in the sports world, and how communities respond when their loyalties are challenged. It becomes clear early on that Maya’s status as the GM’s daughter is of no importance — the very fact that she is female places her much lower in Beartown’s pecking order than Kevin, who is practically untouchable. After all, he’s the one person — the one man — who may be able to revive their beloved, dying town by attracting sponsors with his play. Maya holds no such value, and the town certainly isn’t prepared to believe her based on her word alone, although they will do just that for Kevin.
After a week of fear, Maya goes to the police, who arrest Kevin before the final. It is a bigger outrage to the community, including to many women, that Kevin cannot play than that he is alleged to have committed a crime against one of their own. The outcry over his arrest is largely pointless in the end, as the police conclude they don’t have enough evidence to charge him. He wins: He can continue his life, while Maya will be afraid of the dark for the rest of hers.
Reading the aftermath of Maya’s assault was heartbreaking. Though I don’t relate to her story, I know people who could, and I’ve also been following sports long enough to have heard a number of disturbing stories about players assaulting women and facing zero repercussions. They still get drafted, sign multimillion-dollar contracts and suit up for some of the best teams in the world. It’s tough to reconcile those stories with being a sports fan: I can like sports, but it seems to me there’s often an asterisk that comes with being a woman who supports a team of men: a danger lurking behind the success. Beartown is about that asterisk.
Brigid Iannelli, a sophomore American studies major with minors in journalism and education, is this magazine’s spring intern.