Tuesday Tea and Tomes: Beartown - a tale of small-town hockey, tragedy, triumph and friends you have at fifteen

This month's Tea/Kaffe Klatch and Tomes:  Beartown

"Beartown" is about a small community in northern Sweden where youth hockey reigns supreme. In a remote area challenged by long, harsh winters and limited opportunities, hockey is not just a sport. For most Beartown residents it's a way of life and, for a few of the gifted, it's also a way out.  Hockey brings hope and promise to the small town and when so much hangs on the outcome of a championship, any threat to that end, no matter how horrible, becomes divisive. This hockey season, Beartown's collective moral compass is hit hard and cracks and splits like a brick hitting the season's first thin layer of ice on a pond. 

"Beartown", for me, was relatable on many levels:   it takes place in Sweden (my grandparents are from a Swedish settlement in Finland); involves a small town (similar to one my dad grew up in the upper peninsula); and having some of the best friends you can get at the age of fifteen.  If we subtract a few years from the latter, it brings us to the other member of our "Book Club de Deux", my cher amie for over 50 years. 

It was this great friend who selected this month's book club novel. Loretta had read another book , "Anxious People" by "Beartown" author, Fredrik Backman, and enjoyed it. We like to compare writing styles of authors against contemporaries as well as the author themselves, so we were both eager to add "Beartown" to the latest reading choice of our Book Club de Deux.

BCDD members from 12 to present (here 19)

Book Club de Deux

Some may also recognize the author from another of his books, " A Man Called Ove", which was turned into a major motion picture last year starring Tom Hanks. ("Ove" was changed to "Otto" as I'm guessing that many of us in the American audience wouldn't readily connect that "Ove" was just a name without a deeper meaning.)

But, back to our book of the month, "Beartown". This novel is very readable and engaging, with some character's stories so compelling that it tugged emotionally and made us care - like Amat, the young hockey player, short on money but big on heart. However, we both felt that there were some factors that weighed the narrative down: the storytelling was a bit contrived in parts and repetitive in its themes.  Community, value, culture - these were a consistent and not so subtle thread throughout the 400-plus pages.  These words floated over small town gossip and on banners in the hockey stadium, sometimes torn apart both figuratively and literally. And, if we didn't get the meaning and symbolism from their looming presence, they're further explained in a conversation with an old hockey coach.  

However, from my exposure to small, remote towns with harsh winters and a good deal of Scandinavians, two things are paramount: local sports and coffee. In my dad's hometown, high school basketball was its passion and on the occasional year they'd be gifted with a star player, that young man was treated as a celebrity. Even my grandmother followed the games like they were a team in the NBA.

And, then, there's the coffee.  For Swedes, like my grandmother and the extended family in Finland that we visited a few years back,  "coffee" is not just a hot beverage served in a cup. No, it's a table set with multiple cakes, rolls, toast and jams. It's also more than food and drink - it's a Scandinavian way of saying "hello" and "welcome".

So as Backman hits the hockey hard in Beartown, he also adds some subtle Swedish customs, like coffee. In one chapter he notes that Kira - attorney, wife of a hockey coach and mother of two teenagers - ". . . smells coffee from a neighbor's house and wishes someone would invite her over - shared coffee being the customary gesture of hospitality in Beartown".

As stated in the beginning of our review, Beartown is not only about hockey and small towns, it's about the friends you make when you are teenagers - another theme that is underlined heavily. Several times throughout the book, the author talks of the special bond you have with the friends you make when you are fifteen and even though it changes, those who drift apart seek the rewards of reuniting.

Kaffee Klatch-ing in person or on Zoom, celebrating great friends and great books!

For our Book Club de Deux, whose members became friends at twelve, that bond is cherished and it continues to be celebrated - no matter how many miles separate us - with our monthly kaffee klatches and book club.

"Beartown" is, in parts, a page-turner, a quick read and gives you a lot to think about. We say it pairs well with coffee and dear friends.  Just for today, we're "Tuesday Kaffee Klatch and Tomes".  💘😉