And they’ll all lie and say they were here and saw it happen. The first skate of the girl who will become the most talented player this club has ever seen. They’ll all say they knew it even then.
* * *
Because people recognize the bear around here.
* * *
Cherry trees always smell of cherry trees.
* * *
They do that in hockey towns.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First of all, thank you to all the people who helped me with the most difficult parts of this story, but who for various reasons asked not to be mentioned here by name. I owe you a huge amount.
A particularly deep bow is also directed toward all the hockey players, managers, referees, and parents who have let me attend games and training sessions and ask strange questions.
Special thanks to my friend and fellow author Niklas Natt och Dag, my publisher Sofia Brattselius Thunfors, my editor Vanja Vinter, and my agent Tor Johansson. Apart from my family the four of you have been the most important people in the completion of this book. Thank you for sticking up for me right to the end.
I would also like to express my immense gratitude to the following individuals, without whose help this would have been nothing more than an idea and a pile of paper: Tobias Stark, historian and ice-hockey researcher at the Institute for Sports Science at Linnaeus University. Isabel Boltenstern and Jonathan Lindquist, inexhaustible sources of knowledge and entertaining bastards who were tough but fair critics, even when it hurt an author’s fragile ego. Erika Holst, John Lind, Johan Forsberg, Andreas Haara, Ulf Engman, and Fredrik Glader, hockey experts who were incredibly generous with their time when my ideas were hopelessly vague. Anders Dalenius, for informative conversations about dogs and guns. Sofia B. Karlsson, for wide-ranging chat and wise answers about sport and life. Robert Pettersson, for a lonnng and patient email exchange. Attila Terek, for specialist knowledge of chemistry. Isac and Rasmus at Monkeysports in Södertälje, for letting me wander about the store for a whole day, and teaching me about hockey equipment. Lina “Lynx” Eklund and Pancrase Gym, for letting me come on fact-finding visits and hear you talk about your love of sport. Johan Zillén, for never being shy of giving your opinion. Also: all the legal experts in a wide range of areas who helped out along the way with details and terminology, as well as everyone else who in various ways read and thought and suggested when I sent you parts of the manuscript. There are too many of you to list here, but I hope you know that I know.
I’m grateful to the hardworking staff of my American publisher, Atria Books, particularly Atria’s publisher Judith Curr, my editor Peter Borland, my publicist Ariele Fredman, as well as Suzanne Donahue, Kimberly Goldstein, Michael Selleck, Sonja Singleton, Albert Tang, Jim Thiel, Hillary Tisman, and Daniella Wexler. And thanks to Simon & Schuster Canada publisher Kevin Hanson and editor Brendan May.
But, most of all: my children. Thank you for waiting while I wrote this. NOW we can play Minecraft.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FREDRIK BACKMAN is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, 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 forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children.
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ALSO BY FREDRIK BACKMAN
A Man Called Ove
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry
Britt-Marie Was Here
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Fredrik Backman
English language translation copyright © 2017 by Neil Smith
Originally published in Swedish in 2016 as Björnstad
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Jacket Art and Design by Alan Dingman
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Author Photograph © Linnéa Jonasson Bernholm/Appendix fotografi
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Backman, Fredrik, 1981- author. | Smith, Neil (Neil Andrew), translator.Title: Beartown : a novel / Fredrik Backman ; translated from the Swedish by Neil Smith.Other titles: Bjornstad. EnglishDescription: New York : Atria Books, 2017.Identifiers: LCCN 2017000377 (print) | LCCN 2017000383 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501160769 (hardback) | ISBN 9781501160783 (eBook)Subjects: LCSH: Hockey stories. | Scandals—Fiction. | Sweden— Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Humorous. | FICTION / General. Classification: LCC PT9877.12.A32 B5513 2017 (print) | LCC PT9877.12.A32 (ebook) | DDC 839.73/8—dc23LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000377
ISBN 978-1-5011-6076-9
ISBN 978-1-5011-6078-3 (ebook)
Fredrik Backman, Beartown
(Series: Beartown # 1)
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