A dad is drawn onto the court and into the life of a 12-year-old
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Cheryl Stritzel McCarthy
Special to The Plain Dealer
Know a kid who lives and breathes basketball? "Travel Team," by New York sports columnist Mike Lupica, is for him or her.
Lupica, a youth coach and father of four, knows his stuff. The jargon, emotion and culture of middle school sports permeate every page. Lupica also weaves in references to the '70s through the parents, making adult readers smile too.
The novel's premise is as familiar as a yellow school bus. Danny Walker, the town's star 12-year-old basketball player, is cut from the travel team for being too short. He has made this elite team for the past two years. He is better than anybody at seeing the open player and making the pass. He is quicker, he is faster, he is more determined.
"Look at him play. How could he not make travel?" asks his divorced dad, who drifts back into town the night Danny is cut from the team.
"They told him he was too small," answers his ex-wife.
To make matters worse, this hometown travel team is the same one that his father, as a youth, led to national prominence. The father was on his way to stardom when a ruinous car accident and drinking problem shunted him off the fast track and onto a sidetrack to nowhere. The father's youthful rival in the old days is the coach of today's travel team. That coach wants "bigger."
Danny's not. He has always been the little guy, front and center in every class picture since kindergarten. Danny, devastated, needs his dad, but he knows what he has: a father who doesn't talk, doesn't hug and doesn't show up.
But the deadbeat dad acts on a throwaway question from the coach: "Why don't you start your own team with the leftovers, if you're so upset about your son not making it?" The challenge sticks. Not so deadbeat after all, Danny's father scrapes together a team.
This all could dribble into cliche, but it doesn't. Lupica knows too much about this world, and his story rings true.
This book just can't miss - unlike that critical free throw in the last seconds of the big game.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Michele Ross
Special to The Plain Dealer
After his dazzling, liter ate and downright scary debut thriller "Tropic of Night," Michael Gruber proves he's the real thing, and then some, with "Valley of Bones," his equally mesmerizing, multilayered, page-turning new novel.
"Bones" brings back Miami cop Jimmy Paz, a Cuban-American who's still shaken from events in "Tropic." After a rich oilman falls to his death from his hotel balcony, Paz, who is a little sarcastic as well as a snappy dresser, admires the corpse's shoes and figures he has a routine case. But in the oilman's room, Paz finds Emmylou Dideroff, one of the most compelling characters in recent fiction.
A plain, country woman, Emmylou prays, faints, then awakes to announce matter-of-factly that she talks with and sees St. Catherine of Siena, and oh yes, she had followed the (now) dead man because he was a murderer.
Paz has no choice but to arrest Emmylou, but he suspects there is much more to the story. That proves to be a serious understatement.
As "Valley" unfolds, it's told in three alternate, equally compelling voices: in a straight narrative with Paz and police psychologist Lorna Wise following leads; in a first-person "confession" written by Emmylou; and in excerpts from a history of "The Story of the Nursing Sisters of the Blood of Christ," whose tale entwines with that of Emmylou.
Normally this reader hates alternative-points-of-view novels because they disrupt any intensity from building. But in "Valley," each style is riveting, Emmylou's perhaps the most, as she recalls in a calm voice free of pity, a life of abuse, horror and misfortune that would have killed a lesser soul.
Gruber is nothing less than masterful at weaving together these strands while increasing the tension, yet he still manages to bring even the most peripheral characters to vivid life with just a few strokes.
Rich in history and human insight, polished and poignant, "Valley of Bones" explores the nature of faith while telling a page-turning story. Don't miss this book.
Check out www.cleveland.com for more book reviews!