The sleeves of her jacket are slightly too short; she’s gotten taller this year without her jacket realizing it. Two fresh tattoos are visible on her lower arms. One is of a guitar, the other a rifle.

Benji nods. “I like them.”

“Thanks. Where are you going?” she asks.

He considers his reply for a long time. “I don’t know. Just . . . somewhere else.”

She nods. Hands him a piece of paper containing a brief handwritten text. “I got into music school. I’ll be moving in January. I don’t know if you’ll be back here before then, so I . . . I just wanted to give you this.”

While he reads it, she starts to walk back toward her mom’s car. When he’s finished, he calls after her, “MAYA!”

“WHAT?” she shouts back.

“DON’T LET THE BASTARDS SEE YOU CRY!”

She laughs with tears in her eyes. “NEVER, BENJI! NEVER!”

* * *

Perhaps they will never meet again, but she wrote all the biggest things she feels for him on that scrap of paper:

I wish you courage

I wish you rushing blood

A heart that beats too hard

Feelings that make everything too hard

Love that gets out of control

The most intense adventures

I hope you find your way out

I hope you’re the kind of person

Who gets a happy ending

* * *

The sun will make its way up over our town again tomorrow. Incredibly.

* * *

A young woman named Ana will dig deep enough within herself to find the strength to go on living. Because people like her always do, somehow. A few months from now, a long way away in a big city, she will compete for the first time in her sport. Jeanette kisses her forehead in the locker room. Maya stands beside her, punches Ana’s gloved hands with her own clenched fists, and whispers, “I love you, you idiot!” Ana smiles sadly and replies, “I love you, you moron.” She has the same tattoos as Maya on her lower arms: a guitar and a rifle. Ana’s father is standing outside the locker room. He’s still trying.

When Ana steps into the ring to confront her opponent, a section of the audience stands up, as if on command. They don’t shout out, but they’re wearing black jackets, and they all put one hand very briefly on their hearts when she looks at them.

“Who are they?” the referee asks in surprise.

Ana blinks up at the roof. She imagines the sky beyond it. “Those are my brothers and sisters. They stand tall if I stand tall.”

When the fight begins, Ana has just one opponent in the ring. It doesn’t make any difference, she could have been facing a hundred of them. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.

* * *

And the sun rises. Tomorrow, again.

* * *

A boy from the Hollow, a boy named Amat, a boy everyone thought was too small and weak to be really good at hockey, will run all the way along the main road to the NHL. He becomes a professional on the ice, and his childhood friend Zacharias from the next block becomes a professional in front of a computer screen. Some of the girls and boys they grew up with will take the wrong path, some will pass away too soon, but some will find their way to lives of their own. Big, proud lives. None of them ever forgets where they came from.

A dad named Hog goes on repairing cars in a garage, fighting for his children, taking each day as it comes. They visit Ann-Katrin’s grave each morning. His eldest son, Bobo, who can pull axes from car hoods but has still never really learned to skate well, gradually becomes good friends with a hockey coach who’s bad at emotions. Zackell makes him her assistant coach. He does a hell of a good job at it.

Ramona rebuilds her pub. When it reopens, everyone in Beartown and a fair few of the bastards from Hed line up for hours to go in and buy a beer and leave their change in an envelope with the words THE KITTY written on it. Beartown’s hockey coach eats her potatoes free of charge for the whole of the next year. But she has to pay for her beer; this isn’t a damn charity, you know.

In one corner sit five old women. At the bar sit four old men. It isn’t always easy. But if you say that to them, they’ll reply that it’s not supposed to be.

Alicia, four and a half years old, will turn five. She’s in the ice rink every day, but she will still stand in an old man’s garden from time to time and slap pucks into the wall next to his terrace, and one day she will be the best.

When spring comes, three grown men meet one Sunday afternoon in the parking lot outside the supermarket. Peter, Tails, and Hog. They have slightly less hair and slightly larger stomachs now than when they last played together twenty years ago, but they have their hockey sticks and a tennis ball with them. Their wives and children carry out one net, laughing and shouting cheeky challenges to their dads as they carry the other. Then the families start to play, as if nothing else mattered.

* * *

Because it’s a simple game if you strip away all the crap surrounding it and just keep the things that made us love it in the first place.

* * *

Everyone gets a stick. Two nets. Two teams.

* * *

Us against you.

This reading group guide for US AGAINST YOU includes an introduction, discussion questions, and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

Introduction

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, its residents have 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, a surprising new coach who gives Beartown hockey a chance at a comeback.

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 the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after everything, the game they love can ever return to something as simple as a field of ice, two nets, and two teams. Us against you.

Topics & Questions for Discussion

1. Backman describes the struggle between Beartown and Hed as one between the Bear and the Bull. What does this metaphor represent besides two fearsome animals fighting each other? What do these symbols say about the character of each town?

2. Early in the book, Maya and Ana retreat to a special place far from the rest of Beartown. Read Maya’s song, “The Island.” What do you think this little piece of land means to both of them?

3. Kira makes sacrifices so that Peter can be manager of Beartown hockey. Does Peter make sacrifices for his family, too? Discuss the way their relationship changes over the course of the book.

4. Peter tells Ann-Katrin: “I’m afraid the club might demand more from your sons than it can give back to them.”. Bobo, Benji, and Amat must take their place in the world of men when they join the A-team. How does this change force them to grow up? In what ways does it expose their immaturities? What are the different ways each boy tries to fit in with and be accepted by the older players? In the end, are Peter’s fears of what the club will demand of the players justified?

5. People from Hed burn a Beartown Jersey in their town square. This event doesn’t hurt anyone physically, but would you still consider it an act of violence? How does this small symbolic act become amplified and have the power to do so much relational damage?

6. What special challenges do Maya and Ana face as they near adulthood? Do you think two such different girls will be able to maintain their friendship as they head down separate paths?

7. “When we describe how the violence between these two towns started, most of us will no longer remember what came first”. What do you think the tipping point was? What do you think the novel says about human beings’ innate tendency toward violence?

8. A theme in Us Against You is tribalism versus community. Both dynamics are grounded in a sense of loyalty formed around a shared identity, but what makes them different? How can a strong community become insular and intolerant?

9. Two outsiders come to town, Elisabeth Zackell and Richard Theo. How does each person understand the culture in Beartown, and how do they use that understanding to their individual advantage?

10. “People’s reactions to leadership are always the same: if your decisions benefit me, you’re fair, and if the same decision harms me, you’re a tyrant.”. Are there any characters in Beartown who act against their own self-interest? What do you think are their reasons for doing so?