Beartown is a small town in a large Swedish forest. For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together - or pulls them apart. Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year. But now the town is on the verge of an astonishing revival. Change is in the air and a bright new future is just around the corner. Until the day it is all put in jeopardy by a single, brutal act. It divides the town into those who think it should be hushed up and forgotten, and those who'll risk the future to see justice done. At last, it falls to one young man to find the courage to speak the truth that it seems no one else wants to hear. With the town's future at stake, no one can stand by or stay silent. Everyone is on one side or the other. |
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The Author:
Fredrik Backman is a Swedish blogger, columnist and author. He is the Number One New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, and top ten bestsellers My Grandmother Sends Her Regards and Apologises and Britt-Marie Was Here, as well as a novella, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer. His books are published in more than thirty-five countries and he has sold over seven million copies. The Scandal - published as Beartown in the US - is being adapted for TV by the team behind The Bridge. Fredrik lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children.
The Reviews:
Industry Reviews
I wasn't sure I would love a novel centred on hockey - but as with Friday Night Lights this is actually a story about people - about strength and tribal loyalty and what we unwittingly do when trying to show our boys how to be men. I utterly believed in the residents of Beartown, and felt ripped apart by the events in the book -- Jojo Moyes * bestselling author of Me Before You *
Surrounded by impenetrable forests, it recreates the stifling atmosphere of a dying community. This is a mature, compassionate novel. * Sunday Times *
A story about families, about friendship and loyalty, inequality, female vulnerability, male back-slapping, and parenthood ... No person's story is too little to be told, Backman includes them all. A novel with a big heart * Joenkoepings-Posten, Sweden *
As popular Swedish exports go, Backman is up there with ABBA and Stieg Larsson. * The New York Times Book Review
Our Review:
We had a very long and interesting discussion about this book and the role of it’s characters on both sides of the rape incident and the events leading up to it and after the event. The group had varying comments about these as you would expect, as did the characters in the book and most western societies around the world. Like many of the books we read, on the surface it’s seems like a simple story about a remote Swedish village in a forest and it’s ice hockey team but on further reading it is a lot deeper than that. I really enjoyed this book and so too did many of the Book Club members. This is the second of Fredrik Backman’s books we have read and they were both very thought-provoking. They are good book club reading as they present lots of discussion.
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