Us Against You: A Novel by Fredrik Backman (English) Paperback Book

Description: Us Against You by Fredrik Backman, Neil Smith 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 dont expect life to be easy or fair. No matter how difficult times get, theyve always been able to take pride in their local ice hockey team. So its 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 youll 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 towns 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. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You Shes Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, Anxious People, The Winners, My Friends, as well as two novellas and one work of nonfiction. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook and X @BackmanLand and on Instagram @Backmansk. Review PRAISE FOR US AGAINST YOU "What you get in a Fredrik Backman work is wonderful writing and brilliant insights into things that truly matter--right vs. wrong, fear vs. courage, love vs. hate, the importance and limits of friendship and loyalty, and more. Fredrik Backman is one of the worlds best and most interesting novelists. He is a giant among the worlds great novelists--and this literary giant is still growing."-- "Washington Times""Backman (A Man Called Ove) returns to the hockey-obsessed village of his previous novel Beartown to chronicle the passion, violence, resilience, and humanity of the people who live there in this engrossing tale of small-town Swedish life... Backmans excellent novel has an atmosphere of both Scandinavian folktale and Greek tragedy. Darkness and grit exist alongside tenderness and levity, creating a blunt realism that brings the settings small-town atmosphere to vivid life."-- "Publishers Weekly""If Alexander McCall Smiths and Maeve Binchys novels had a love child, the result would be the work of Swedish writer Fredrik Backman...With his wry acceptance of foible and failure, Backman combines a singular style with a large and compassionate perspective for his characters...[His] novels have wide appeal, and for good reason. Us Against You takes a lyrical look at how a community heals, how families recover and how individuals grow."-- "The Washington Post" Review Quote PRAISE FOR US AGAINST YOU "What you get in a Fredrik Backman work is wonderful writing and brilliant insights into things that truly matter--right vs. wrong, fear vs. courage, love vs. hate, the importance and limits of friendship and loyalty, and more. Fredrik Backman is one of the worlds best and most interesting novelists. He is a giant among the worlds great novelists--and this literary giant is still growing." Excerpt from Book Chapter 1: Its Going to Be Someones Fault 1 Its Going to Be Someones Fault Have you ever seen a town fall? Ours did. Well end up saying that violence came to Beartown this summer, but that will be a lie; the violence was already here. Because sometimes hating one another is so easy that it seems incomprehensible that we ever do anything else. Were a small community in the forest; people say that no roads lead here, just past. The economy coughs every time it takes a deep breath; the factory cuts its workforce each year like a child that thinks no one will notice the cake in the fridge getting smaller if you take a little bit from each side. If you lay a current map of the town over an old one, the main shopping street and the little strip known as "the center" seem to shrink like bacon in a hot pan. We have an ice rink but not much else. But on the other hand, as people usually say here: What the hell else do you need? People driving through say that Beartown doesnt live for anything but hockey, and some days they may be right. Sometimes people have to be allowed to have something to live for in order to survive everything else. Were not mad, were not greedy; say what you like about Beartown, but the people here are tough and hardworking. So we built a hockey team that was like us, that we could be proud of, because we werent like you. When people from the big cities thought something seemed too hard, we just grinned and said, "Its supposed to be hard." Growing up here wasnt easy; thats why we did it, not you. We stood tall, no matter the weather. But then something happened, and we fell. Theres a story about us before this one, and were always going to carry the guilt of that. Sometimes good people do terrible things in the belief that theyre trying to protect what they love. A boy, the star of the hockey team, raped a girl. And we lost our way. A community is the sum of its choices, and when two of our children said different things, we believed him. Because that was easier, because if the girl was lying our lives could carry on as usual. When we found out the truth, we fell apart, taking the town with us. Its easy to say that we should have done everything differently, but perhaps you wouldnt have acted differently, either. If youd been afraid, if youd been forced to pick a side, if youd known what you had to sacrifice. Perhaps you wouldnt be as brave as you think. Perhaps youre not as different from us as you hope. This is the story of what happened afterward, from one summer to the following winter. It is about Beartown and the neighboring town of Hed, and how the rivalry between two hockey teams can grow into a mad struggle for money and power and survival. It is a story about hockey rinks and all the hearts that beat around them, about people and sports and how they sometimes take turns carrying each other. About us, people who dream and fight. Some of us will fall in love, others will be crushed; well have good days and some very bad days. This town will rejoice, but it will also start to burn. Theres going to be a terrible bang. Some girls will make us proud; some boys will make us great. Young men dressed in different colors will fight to the death in a dark forest. A car will drive too fast through the night. We will say that it was a traffic accident, but accidents happen by chance, and we will know that we could have prevented this one. This one will be someones fault. People we love will die. We will bury our children beneath our most beautiful trees. Details ISBN150116080X Author Neil Smith Pages 448 Language English Year 2019 ISBN-10 150116080X ISBN-13 9781501160806 Format Paperback Publication Date 2019-03-05 Short Title Us Against You Subtitle A Novel Series Beartown DEWEY 839.738 Audience General UK Release Date 2019-03-05 Publisher Simon & Schuster Imprint Simon & Schuster Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States US Release Date 2019-03-05 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:120100225;

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