I love when the local bookstore asks me to interview a visiting author, to turn it into a Q&A style event. I like those kind of events when I’m doing readings myself, too; there can be more of a spark in a conversation than in a monologue. I think that’s why the questions at the end of a reading — unscripted, candid — is often the best part.

 Yesterday bestselling Swedish author Fredrik Backman came to town, his only stop in the Boston area. I had three months’ notice to read his latest book, BEARTOWN, plus his backlist: A MAN CALLED OVE (once and for all settling any debate that existed over the pronunciation — it’s Ooo-veh), MY GRANDMOTHER ASKED ME TO TELL YOU SHE’S SORRY, BRITT MARIE WAS HERE).

I especially enjoyed BEARTOWN, about the effect of rabid youth hockey on a small town. It was darker than his earlier books, and questions the pack mentality of a team, and the way loyalties divide the community when one member is accused of a crime.

Interestingly, the main character is the town itself; the narrative lens is like a camera suspended above it, dipping in and out of each house, observing how the residents respond to the crisis. There is hand-wringing about what’s happening to the community and how the community can do this, which sounds eerily familiar in 2017 U.S. Backman doesn’t let individual responsibility off the hook: “Community is the sum of moral decisions made by the people who live there.”