A touching and ultimately uplifting story of redefining what’s possible through faith.
In Bullock’s warmhearted and amusing fiction debut, a happily married banker on the verge of retirement finds himself called to become a prophet of God—and perhaps the golfing world’s newest celebrity.
Mild-mannered ordinary guy Joe Goodman, 63, is an avid golfer looking forward to puttering around the links during his imminent retirement. He’s happy with his life—happy to consider it nothing extraordinary. But the extraordinary intervenes. After a weekend contentedly watching the Masters Tournament on TV, Joe is at work when he receives a message from God on his computer (“Have you run out of stone tablets?” Joe asks). God tells Joe that, far from being a spectator, he’s going to play in the following year’s Masters, and—if his faith is strong enough—he’s going to win. This is nothing Joe has ever imagined, of course; like a long string of prophets before him, he asks, “Are you sure you’ve got the right guy?” In a series of smoothly controlled chapters, his unexpected journey unfolds. Joe’s heaven-sent companion on that journey is a man named Herb Friday, who assures him, “This is going to be hard work, but lots of fun.” Under Herb’s guidance, Joe quickly progresses through local and regional tournaments, gaining trophies and confidence despite the distractions he encounters at work, where busybody governmental regulations are making his bank’s ordinary operations more difficult. As the months pass, Joe’s supportive wife tells him she’s convinced that “God picked the right two guys for this mission.” As Joe’s game improves, Bullock adroitly brings alive the world of golf and connects it—without being heavy-handed or preachy—to the nature of personal belief. This isn’t just for golfers, though. Bullock’s gentle good humor sparkles throughout, and the story’s climax will bring a smile to just about any reader’s face.
A touching and ultimately uplifting story of redefining what’s possible through faith.Pub Date: March 26, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5795-6
Page Count: 170
Publisher: True Directions
Review Posted Online: July 23, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading...
A maddening, well-constructed tale of medical discovery and corporate coverup, set in morgues, laboratories, courtrooms, and football fields.
Nigeria-born Bennet Omalu is perhaps an unlikely hero, a medical doctor board-certified in four areas of pathology, “anatomic, clinical, forensic, and neuropathology,” and a well-rounded specialist in death. When his boss, celebrity examiner Cyril Wecht (“in the autopsy business, Wecht was a rock star”), got into trouble for various specimens of publicity-hound overreach, Omalu was there to offer patient, stoical support. The student did not surpass the teacher in flashiness, but Omalu was a rock star all his own in studying the brain to determine a cause of death. Laskas’ (Creative Writing/Univ. of Pittsburgh; Hidden America, 2012, etc.) main topic is the horrific injuries wrought to the brains and bodies of football players on the field. Omalu’s study of the unfortunate brain of Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Webster, who died in 2002 at 50 of a supposed heart attack, brought new attention to the trauma of concussion. Laskas trades in sportwriter-ese, all staccato delivery full of tough guy–isms and sports clichés: “He had played for fifteen seasons, a warrior’s warrior; he played in more games—two hundred twenty—than any other player in Steelers history. Undersized, tough, a big, burly white guy—a Pittsburgh kind of guy—the heart of the best team in history.” A little of that goes a long way, but Laskas, a Pittsburgher who first wrote of Omalu and his studies in a story in GQ, does sturdy work in keeping up with a grim story that the NFL most definitely did not want to see aired—not in Omalu’s professional publications in medical journals, nor, reportedly, on the big screen in the Will Smith vehicle based on this book.
Effectively sobering. Suffice it to say that Pop Warner parents will want to armor their kids from head to toe upon reading it.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8757-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2015
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.
NBA legends Bird and Johnson, fierce rivals during their playing days, team up on a mutual career retrospective.
With megastars LeBron James and Kobe Bryant and international superstars like China’s Yao Ming pushing it to ever-greater heights of popularity today, it’s difficult to imagine the NBA in 1979, when financial problems, drug scandals and racial issues threatened to destroy the fledgling league. Fortunately, that year marked the coming of two young saviors—one a flashy, charismatic African-American and the other a cocky, blond, self-described “hick.” Arriving fresh off a showdown in the NCAA championship game in which Johnson’s Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State Sycamores—still the highest-rated college basketball game ever—the duo changed the course of history not just for the league, but the sport itself. While the pair’s on-court accomplishments have been exhaustively chronicled, the narrative hook here is unprecedented insight and commentary from the stars themselves on their unique relationship, a compelling mixture of bitter rivalry and mutual admiration. This snapshot of their respective careers delves with varying degrees of depth into the lives of each man and their on- and off-court achievements, including the historic championship games between Johnson’s Lakers and Bird’s Celtics, their trailblazing endorsement deals and Johnson’s stunning announcement in 1991 that he had tested positive for HIV. Ironically, this nostalgic chronicle about the two men who, along with Michael Jordan, turned more fans onto NBA basketball than any other players, will likely appeal primarily to a narrow cross-section of readers: Bird/Magic fans and hardcore hoop-heads.
Doesn’t dig as deep as it could, but offers a captivating look at the NBA’s greatest era.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-547-22547-0
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2009
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