by Reid Forgrave ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2020
An intelligent, provocative tale that will give pause to many parents of football players at any level.
A sportswriter and social commentator explores the culture of football through the story of a young man who suffered life-altering brain damage from playing the sport.
Zac Easter grew up in a family in which the men worshipped football. His father, Myles, was a high school and college football coach, and his brothers were respected high school players. Despite Zac’s reputation as “the toughest dude” on the gridiron, he was smaller than his teammates and had to work harder than others to build up his physique. Perhaps in response to these factors—an “intimidating hard ass” father and Zac’s own perceived physical inadequacy, especially in comparison to his brothers—Zac routinely led with his head on most plays. His strategy resulted in head pains that he discussed only with his trainer or in his journal. An exceptionally bad concussion ended Zac’s football career when he was a senior. When a doctor suggested that Zac may have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disease found in the brains of many similarly troubled NFL players, it was too late. Zac had already begun an emotional and physical spiral that eventually culminated in his suicide at age 24. Forgrave adds a poignant intimacy to Zac’s tragedy by interweaving it with portions of Zac’s journal and personal correspondences. He also offers a detailed look at the evolution of football into “America’s most…lucrative sport” and a game that has defined American conceptions of masculinity over more than a century. Awareness about CTE continues to grow, but, as the author suggests, the American “obsession” with football is still far too complex to do away with the sport or negate the violence that is part of its enduring allure.
An intelligent, provocative tale that will give pause to many parents of football players at any level.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-61620-908-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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by Elie Wiesel & translated by Marion Wiesel ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 16, 2006
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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by Elie Wiesel ; illustrated by Mark Podwal
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IndieBound Bestseller
by Steve Martin illustrated by Harry Bliss ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 17, 2020
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
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IndieBound Bestseller
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
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