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THE BLACKTOP CHAMPION OF ICKEY HONEY by Robert T. Sorrells

THE BLACKTOP CHAMPION OF ICKEY HONEY

By

Pub Date: Nov. 1st, 1988
ISBN: 0595515371
Publisher: Univ. of Arkansas Press

And Other Stories Stories, written over two decades, that are either first-rate dramas centered, as often as not, on athletes; or less accomplished light comedies that strain too much for their effects. In both types, Sorrells is a master of the play-by-play, whether he's describing a tennis match (the title story), a ball game (""Rookie,"" ""The Phone Call""), an attempted rescue from drowning (""Drowning""), or a game of solitaire (""The All-Time Master Grand-Master of Solitaire""). Of the more serious stories, ""Lovers"" powerfully evokes a frightening erotic encounter between Robbie, a football player on his ritual day of senior freedom, and Ressie, the cook at his academy whose dormant sexuality surfaces with bittersweet results. ""Drowning"" is a trenchant meditation on mortality from the point of view of a teacher who failed to save a black athlete from drowning. ""The Phone Call,"" ostensibly about Ferris, a semipro ballplayer who forbids his wife Sharon to call her half-sister Sarah Jane, is actually a long meditation on a failed marriage and a man forever repressed by his father's dying words. Of the light pieces, the title story is most successful: in a small town at the end of the world, Lodi Poidle, the county-agent narrator, helps tennis player Hoke Warble prepare for a highly promoted grudge match with blueblood Newton Slock; the whole affair turns out to be a scam to attract visitors to the region. Other stories--like ""Rookie,"" ""The Man Who Walked Pigeons,"" and ""The All-Time Master Grand-Master of Solitaire,""--are amusing in places but too easy to see through. All in all, then, an uneven but well-written collection with several memorable stories, particularly interesting in its literary treatment of athletes.