Beartown (Beartown, #1)

by Fredrik Backman

Kevin is the jewel, Benji the insurance policy.

This house is the only place in the world he has ever learned to be alone.

what are principles worth, if you don’t win?

We become what we are told we are. Ana has always been told that she’s wrong.

Benji has realized how similar he is to the dogs: if you make yourself useful, you get a longer leash.

He didn’t want a whole troupe of players who were all pretty good at exactly the same things, he wanted specialists.

It’s impossible to let your daughter grow up. The only problem is that you’re not given a choice.

“My job is to be your father, not your friend,” his dad explained when Kevin mentioned once too often the fact that Benji’s mother sees almost all of their games. He didn’t need to get angry for Kevin to understand his point: Benji’s mother doesn’t sponsor the team to the tune of several million kronor every year. She doesn’t make sure that the lights in the rink stay on. So she probably has rather more time to watch games.

That probably totally makes sense in Kevin's father's head.

They’ve watched spoiled children in the Heights grow up to become triumphs of mediocrity—feeble, whining creatures who are going to need their hands held all their lives—and they’re not going to let that happen to Kevin. Even when it hurts, even when Kevin had to walk all the way back from Hed in the dark when he was in primary school because his dad wanted to teach him the consequences of being late, even when his mother had to pretend to be asleep when the boy got home. Even when she wept silently into her pillow. What feels comfortable for the parents isn’t what’s best for the child, she’s convinced of that, and Kevin has grown strong because they’ve allowed him to.

In the meantime Amat is sitting in the corner, hearing himself laugh. Because it’s a release. Because it makes him feel part of the team. Because there’s something wonderful about making the same noise as everyone around him. He’ll feel ashamed of that forever.

He can never sleep after games, and that’s the only time he smokes. Only best friends know that sort of thing about each other. Only two boys who once lay side by side under the covers, reading comics by flashlight and realizing that the reason they always felt like outsiders was because they were superheroes.

Kevin is terrified of loneliness, but Benji embraces it as a natural state. All through their childhood Kevin has been scared that one day he’ll wake up and discover that the other superhero is gone. That this friendship never meant anything to him.

That’s the last time they see each other in their childhood. That ends tonight.

There are thousands of ways to die in Beartown. Especially on the inside.

A thousand wishes yesterday, one single one today.

To do something stupid, all you need is the opportunity. To do something good, all you need is a reason.”

culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit.”

most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.”

Kira once told him that the club had an unpleasant culture of silence, the sort of thing you find among soldiers and criminals. But sometimes that’s what it takes, a culture of silence to foster a culture of winning.

So she bowed her head and devoted herself to Beartown’s real traditional sports: shame and silence.

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?

The is a burning rage that is building inside me.

Her parents couldn’t imagine that this could happen, but Maya simply hadn’t expected it to happen to her.

“We can’t protect our children.”

You can get almost anything to look normal if you make enough comparisons.

Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes much easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard. It makes demands. Hate is simple.

So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe—comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy. There are many ways of doing that, but none is easier than taking her name away from her.

People are good at feeling shame in this town. They start training early.

the people around a bullied child assume that he or she must get used to it after a while. Never. You never get used to it.

they’re not people to you, they’re just objects of value. And his value is far greater than hers!”

There are few words that are harder to explain than “loyalty.” It’s always regarded as a positive characteristic, because a lot of people would say that many of the best things people do for each other occur precisely because of loyalty. The only problem is that many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.

All his life Bobo has wanted just one thing: to be allowed to belong to something.

But this is their way of showing that some people in this town can actually carry more than one thought in their head at the same time. That you can want to punch a man in the face but still refuse to let anyone hurt his children.

the boys can’t see him but he can see them. Benji and the other one. They’re kissing each other. David is shaking all over. He feels ashamed and disgusted.

He can’t look Benji in the eye. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to do that again.

They were a team, they trusted each other, they had no secrets. Yet even so, one of them did. The last one anyone could have guessed. It’s a betrayal.

When David was little, his dad was an invincible superhero. Dads usually are. He wonders if he himself is going to be one to his child. His dad taught him to skate, patiently and gently. He never got into fights. David knew that other dads sometimes did, but never his. His dad read stories and sang lullabies, didn’t shout when his son wet himself in the supermarket, didn’t shout when he broke a window with a ball. His dad was a big man in daily life, and a giant on the ice, ruthless and invulnerable. “A real man!” the coaches always used to say, admiringly. David would stand by the boards and soak up every compliment, as if they were aimed at him. His dad did everything for a reason, never hesitated, whether in hockey or in his opinions. “You can be whatever you like, as long as you’re not gay,” he used to laugh. But sometimes, at the kitchen table, he used to get more serious: “Homosexuality is a weapon of mass destruction, David, remember that. It’s not natural. If everyone turns gay, mankind will be wiped out in a generation.” The years passed, and as an old man he used to watch the news and shout: “It’s not a sexual orientation, it’s a trend! And they’re supposed to be an oppressed minority? They’ve got their own PARADE! How oppressed does that make them?” When he’d been drinking he used to form a circle with the fingers and thumb of one hand, then insert the index finger of the other hand into them. “This works, David!” Then he would put the tips of his two index fing...

David drives back to Beartown. Sits in the car crying with anger. He’s ashamed. He’s disgusted. At himself. He’s spent his whole life in hockey training a boy, has loved him like a son, been loved in return like a father. There’s no more loyal player than Benji. No one whose heart is bigger than his. How many times has David hugged number sixteen after a game and told him, “You’re the bravest bastard I know, Benji. The bravest bastard I know.” And after all those hours in the locker room, all those nights on the team bus, all the conversations and all the jokes and the blood, sweat, and tears, the boy didn’t dare tell his coach his biggest secret. That’s betrayal. David knows it’s a huge betrayal. There’s no other way to explain how much a grown man must have failed as a person if such a warrior of a boy could believe that his coach would be less proud of him if he were gay. David hates himself for not being better than his dad. That’s the job of sons.

Down to his very marrow, David wishes he could drive back to Hed, take the boy in his arms, and tell him that he knows now. But he can’t bring himself to unmask someone who clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. Big secrets make small men of us, especially when we’re the men others have to keep secrets from. So David drives home, puts his hand on his girlfriend’s stomach, and pretends he’s crying about the baby. His life will be successful, he will achieve everything he’s ever dreamed of—career and success and titles—he’ll coach unbeatable teams at legendary clubs in several different countries, but he will never let any player in any of them wear number “16.” He will always keep hoping that Benji is going to turn up one day and demand his jersey. There’s a hockey puck on a gravestone in Beartown. The writing is small, so that all the words can fit. Still the bravest bastard I know. Beside the puck lies a watch.

many elite players were never among the five best in their youth team, and how it’s often the sixth- to twelfth-best juniors who break through at senior level. They’ve had to fight harder. They don’t buckle when the setbacks come. “If Filip ever doubts his chances, you don’t have to promise him that he’ll be the best in the team one day. You just have to convince him that he can battle his way to twelfth place,” David said. There’s no way he can know how much that meant for the family, because they have no words to express it. It only changed everything.

Because friendship is both complicated and not complicated at all.

Benji isn’t like anyone else at all. How can you not love someone like that?