Us Against You

“Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else. We’re not mad, we’re not greedy; say what you like about Beartown, but the people here are tough and hardworking.” 

The characters project their anxieties and desires onto something else. In this novel, the “something else” is hockey. The characters prove over and over that they are tough and work hard, no matter how outsiders judge them.

“The worst thing we know about other people is that we’re dependent upon them. That their actions affect our lives. Not just the people we choose, the people we like, but all the rest of them: the idiots.” 

Though the characters all want to exist independently, they still need and want other people. This need disturbs them, because they all know how deeply others can hurt them. Nonetheless, the struggle between independence and interdependence informs much of the inner conflict of the characters.

“The idiots won’t say it was Kevin who killed Beartown Ice Hockey; they’ll say that ‘the scandal’ killed the club. Because their real problem isn’t that Kevin raped someone, but that Maya got raped. If she hadn’t existed, it wouldn’t have happened. Women are always the problem in the men’s world.” 

Backman explores what happens when a community finds a scapegoat for their problems. Maya’s rape becomes its own character, one that divides the town and challenges the heart of Maya’s family. Even Maya sometimes blames herself for what happened, because the ripple effect of her victimization causes even more problems than the trauma of the rape itself. This quote shows that Maya is a girl living in a man’s world. Much of this novel relies on the issue of toxic masculinity in societies that have a difficult time providing unconditional support and love to their boys who become violent men.