What a great story, this sequel to Bear Town. Be sure to read them in order, and be sure to read them.
Backman gets under the skin of each character and then weaves parts of their stories together. By under the skin I mean the honesty of human beings beyond the surface. And with this the level of my compassion for all people reaches a new bar, because being brought up to ‘be nice’ implied that I not scratch the surface of human longing, fear, anger, and other ‘negative’ possibilities.