Us Against You

A Novel

Fredrik Backman

• Publisher: Atria Books
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781501160806
• eBook ISBN:
  9781501160813
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove and Beartown returns with an unforgettable novel “about people—about strength and tribal loyalty and what we unwittingly do when trying to show our boys how to be men” (Jojo Moyes).

Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did.
Have you ever seen a town rise? Ours did that, too.

A small community tucked deep in the forest, Beartown is home to tough, hardworking people who don’t expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, they’ve always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So it’s a cruel blow when they hear that Beartown ice hockey might soon be disbanded. What makes it worse is the obvious satisfaction that all the former Beartown players, who now play for a rival team in the neighboring town of Hed, take in that fact. As the tension mounts between the two adversaries, a newcomer arrives who gives Beartown hockey a surprising new coach and a chance at a comeback.

Soon a team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; always dutiful and eager-to-please Bobo; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the town’s enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big game approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt intensifies. By the time the last goal is scored, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after everything, the game they love can ever return to something as simple and innocent as a field of ice, two nets, and two teams. Us against you.

Here is a declaration of love for all the big and small, bright and dark stories that give form and color to our communities. With immense compassion and insight, Fredrik Backman—“the Dickens of our age” (Green Valley News)—reveals how loyalty, friendship, and kindness can carry a town through its most challenging days.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Chapter 1: It’s Going to Be Someone’s Fault
• Chapter 2: There Are Three Types of People
• Chapter 3: Like a Man
• Chapter 4: Women Are Always the Problem
• Chapter 5: Everyone Is a Hundred Different Things
• Chapter 6: If There Isn’t a War, They Start One
• Chapter 7: Start by Eating Lunch
• Chapter 8: When a Relationship Breaks Down
• Chapter 9: He’s Going to Need Someone to Fight Tonight
• Chapter 10: How Do You Tell Your Children?
• Chapter 11: One Last Chance to Be a Winner
• Chapter 12: I Am Prepared to Burn in Here
• Chapter 13: So They Gave Him an Army
• Chapter 14: A Stranger
• Chapter 15: Vidar Rinnius
• Chapter 16: Beartown Against the Rest
• Chapter 17: Smells Blood and Catches Fire
• Chapter 18: A Woman
• Chapter 19: The Same Blue Polo Shirt
• Chapter 20: Shaving Cream in Your Shoes
• Chapter 21: He’s Lying on the Ground
• Chapter 22: Team Captain
• Chapter 23: “All It Takes for the Only Thing That Matters”
• Chapter 24: But the Bear Inside Her Has Just Woken Up
• Chapter 25: “Mother’s Song”
• Chapter 26: Whose Town Will It Be?
• Chapter 27: Hatred and Chaos
• Chapter 28: “Goddamn homo!”
• Chapter 29: She Kills Him There
• Chapter 30: They Aren’t the Kind of People Who Get Happy Endings
• Chapter 31: Darkness
• Chapter 32: Then He Takes the Shotgun and Goes Out into the Forest
• Chapter 33: Not Waking Up
• Chapter 34: Violence Against a Horse on Official Service
• Chapter 35: But Only if You’re the Best
• Chapter 36: “Don’t Psychopaths Go for Walks, Then?”
• Chapter 37: What We’re Capable Of
• Chapter 38: The Game
• Chapter 39: Violence
• Chapter 40: Always Fair. Always Unfair
• Chapter 41: If You Stand Tall
• Chapter 42: They Take It by Storm
• Chapter 43: We’re Everywhere
• Chapter 44: Storm and Longing
• Chapter 45: Cherry Tree
• Chapter 46: We’ll Say It Was a Road Accident
• Chapter 47: A Love Story We Will Never Forget
• Chapter 48: “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! My Baby!”
• Chapter 49: Everyone Gets a Stick. Two Goals. Two Teams
• Reading Group Guide
• ‘Anxious People’ Teaser
• About the Author
• Copyright