Beartown

I must admit, I didn't love Fredrik Backman's Beartown (#795) as much as A Man Called Ove or Brit Marie Was Here.  Its subject is grim, and the purposely ambiguous narrative jumps from plot point to plot point in this overlong novel.  I kept saying mentally, "Okay, I get it.  Let's move along here!"

It does help if you know something about hockey, but you really don't have to in terms of what is happening in this book.  At some point Backman will hit you over the head with the point he is trying to hammer home.  (You know, I never understand what is going on in a movie when there's a poker game, and we're shown what the players are holding.  I don't know the significance of the cards, so I don't get the message.  You won't have that problem here.)

A depressed and dying Swedish town pins all its hopes of economic revival on the success of its town-sponsored hockey team.  That's basically all there is for the folks in Beartown.  If you're not male, you can't play, and the culture says you can't possibly understand or appreciate it.

When the town produces a potential superstar in seventeen year old Kevin, all he has to do is win the national Final game with his team.  But he messes it up big time, committing a crime instead.  The only problem is that the town has so much invested financially and emotionally in the team that they blame the victim of the crime instead.  It gets even uglier.

The end of the narrative jumps forward ten years.  Do things get better for the sprawling cast of characters?  Maybe - for some.  We don't really know in the end.