So I’m about half way through this book and it’s pretty good. Kind of makes fun of the basketball factory Academies a bit but overall solid so far. Since Grisham lives in C’Ville, I think he jabbed VT a bit by having one of the transfers into NC Central coming from VT. LOL!
As a guy with a military background… I’m also impressed with the South Sudan part of the story… the Lake Chad Basin AOR hotspot has always been very concerning to me based on the current military posture worldwide… so it’s the best of both worlds… basketball and basketball process recruiting and development as well as military hotspot, humanitarian aide highlighting.
Edit: The narrator on the audio of the book that voices Sooley sounds like Mamadi too. Same narrator as The Circle if you’ve ever listened to that one.
Holding off on picking this one up until I finish Time for Mercy.
Overall I like Grisham, though some of his stuff starts to run together after reading more than a few of his works. About the only thing I lose interest in is when he focuses on tort law, which just isn’t that interesting to me.
So far… there is only one lawyer in the whole book and she is the mother of his college basketball roommate. I think she may come into play more into the book… but overall this is not like any other Grisham book I’ve ever read… and I get it, I think every author has their style and if you read enough of their stuff, it can become repetitive.
Grisham will do a few random non legal books from time to time, Playing For Pizza was one and there was another about high school football. I’m looking forward to reading this one, preferably on a beach, this summer.
From John Grisham’s interview in the New York Times about Sooley…
Tony Bennett [coach of the Virginia men’s team] is one of my heroes in life, and he knows so much about basketball. I love watching the games. I have no idea what’s really happening. He does. Coaches do. So I talked to coaches. I talked to a couple of former players, just about the ins and outs of college basketball.
Pizza reminded me if a great one I read some years ago that is non ficton (mostly I think) and based in Italy as well. @DurtyNellys you would like I think as well as @jazznutUVA
Looks similar to the village in Germany I lived in for 10 years… I moved out to a slightly bigger village 5-years ago, but our team there back in the day almost promoted to the Bundesliga in the '70s… and if you ever visited the village, it’s a village of about 7,500 residents that was founded by a travling circus troop that decided not to travel anymore. The soccer pitch had small hills on the sides for the fans… it’s crazy they almost were in the Bundesliga…
I just finished the book… I liked it… but an interesting ending.
In the latter parts there is a meet-up in Charlottesville (no spoilers… but a meet-up).
There are also authors notes at the end where he thanks Tony Bennett, Evan Nolte, Barry Parkhill & Brian Kersey (maybe Grant got him in touch?) for their consultation for the book… I wonder what each of their contributions were? @DFresh11 you should ask them all!
Maybe the endwas Ty Dre Kyle came back and Sooley and the gang repeated and then the coach recruited and landed only OADs after that and started beeaking rules and shit and program went on probation and Sooley, now in the NBA, realises that nothing gold can stay…
