A raucous, off-kilter, and sometimes steamy tale about personal triumphs on and off the basketball court.
A sequel explores love, sex, and basketball.
This new novel from Ashe (Toogoodoo Dreaming, 2014) continues the story of Edward “Skip” Walker, an African-American born and raised in the South Carolina low country and the first person to coach a Historically Black College or University in the NCAA Final Four. In this tale, Skip narrates his own story and stresses to readers that he is only half of a winning personal team. His wife, Veronica Louise Browning Walker, is a major character here, a prominent arbitration attorney who inspires some of the tale’s headiest stylistic riffs: “My wife loves nothing more than weaving around town at high speed making deals a cellphone tucked between her ear and a shoulder a laptop nearby probably plugged into the onboard computer in expensive little hard to drive sports cars when taking care of business.” The book also features Skip’s children, including his wards Romulus and Remus, and photo illustrations by the author. In addition, there’s a pronounced erotic thread running throughout the narrative when dealing with the husband and wife at the center of things. (Skip and Veronica are, suffice to say, very happily married.) But the most powerful and successfully executed parts of the story revolve around the author’s gritty, weirdly eloquent, and unfailingly thrilling depictions of the world of big-time college basketball—the coaches and athletic directors, the money people and fans, and especially the players. Although occasionally sloppy (there are some distracting typos throughout, including “EXORSIST” and “GODESS”), the narrative is thick with jazzy dialogue and sparkling character descriptions. Skip varies the sports talk with generous and often very funny digressions about his extended circle of family and friends. And all along, there’s the dream of victory, which is rendered with excitement but no sentimentality. “It’s an immensely beautiful and magical thing to sit back and watch your future unfold right before your eyes,” Skip reflects at one point. Readers should certainly feel that kind of momentum in these pages.
A raucous, off-kilter, and sometimes steamy tale about personal triumphs on and off the basketball court.Pub Date: April 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5423-6742-4
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Our Lady on the Hill Publishing Company
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.
A basketball legend reflects on his life in the game and a life lived in the “nightmare of endlessly repetitive and constant pain, agony, and guilt.”
Walton (Nothing but Net, 1994, etc.) begins this memoir on the floor—literally: “I have been living on the floor for most of the last two and a half years, unable to move.” In 2008, he suffered a catastrophic spinal collapse. “My spine will no longer hold me,” he writes. Thirty-seven orthopedic injuries, stemming from the fact that he had malformed feet, led to an endless string of stress fractures. As he notes, Walton is “the most injured athlete in the history of sports.” Over the years, he had ground his lower extremities “down to dust.” Walton’s memoir is two interwoven stories. The first is about his lifelong love of basketball, the second, his lifelong battle with injuries and pain. He had his first operation when he was 14, for a knee hurt in a basketball game. As he chronicles his distinguished career in the game, from high school to college to the NBA, he punctuates that story with a parallel one that chronicles at each juncture the injuries he suffered and overcame until he could no longer play, eventually turning to a successful broadcasting career (which helped his stuttering problem). Thanks to successful experimental spinal fusion surgery, he’s now pain-free. And then there’s the music he loves, especially the Grateful Dead’s; it accompanies both stories like a soundtrack playing off in the distance. Walton tends to get long-winded at times, but that won’t be news to anyone who watches his broadcasts, and those who have been afflicted with lifelong injuries will find the book uplifting and inspirational. Basketball fans will relish Walton’s acumen and insights into the game as well as his stories about players, coaches (especially John Wooden), and games, all told in Walton’s fervent, witty style.
One of the NBA’s 50 greatest players scores another basket—a deeply personal one.Pub Date: March 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4767-1686-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
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