The Throwback SpecialThe Throwback Special
a Novel
Title rated 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 31 ratings(31 ratings)
Book, 2016
Current format, Book, 2016, First edition, Available now.Follows the lives of a group of men who gather annually to recreate the November 1985 football play in which Joe Theismann suffered a horrible, career-ending broken leg in this new novel by the author of Abbott Awaits.
Follows the lives of a group of men who gather annually to recreate the November 1985 football play in which Joe Theismann suffered a horrible, career-ending broken leg.
Here is the absorbing story of twenty-two men who gather every fall to painstakingly reenact what ESPN called “the most shocking play in NFL history” and the Washington Redskins dubbed the “Throwback Special”: the November 1985 play in which the Redskins’ Joe Theismann had his leg horribly broken by Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants live on Monday Night Football.With wit and great empathy, Chris Bachelder introduces us to Charles, a psychologist whose expertise is in high demand; George, a garrulous public librarian; Fat Michael, envied and despised by the others for being exquisitely fit; Jeff, a recently divorced man who has become a theorist of marriage; and many more. Over the course of a weekend, the men reveal their secret hopes, fears, and passions as they choose roles, spend a long night of the soul preparing for the play, and finally enact their bizarre ritual for what may be the last time. Along the way, mishaps, misunderstandings, and grievances pile up, and the comforting traditions holding the group together threaten to give way.The Throwback Special is a moving and comic tale filled with pitch-perfect observations about manhood, marriage, middle age, and the rituals we all enact as part of being alive.
From “a real force in American fiction” (Sam Lipsyte), a startlinglyoriginal novel about the psyche of the American male.
Follows the lives of a group of men who gather annually to recreate the November 1985 football play in which Joe Theismann suffered a horrible, career-ending broken leg.
Here is the absorbing story of twenty-two men who gather every fall to painstakingly reenact what ESPN called “the most shocking play in NFL history” and the Washington Redskins dubbed the “Throwback Special”: the November 1985 play in which the Redskins’ Joe Theismann had his leg horribly broken by Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants live on Monday Night Football.With wit and great empathy, Chris Bachelder introduces us to Charles, a psychologist whose expertise is in high demand; George, a garrulous public librarian; Fat Michael, envied and despised by the others for being exquisitely fit; Jeff, a recently divorced man who has become a theorist of marriage; and many more. Over the course of a weekend, the men reveal their secret hopes, fears, and passions as they choose roles, spend a long night of the soul preparing for the play, and finally enact their bizarre ritual for what may be the last time. Along the way, mishaps, misunderstandings, and grievances pile up, and the comforting traditions holding the group together threaten to give way.The Throwback Special is a moving and comic tale filled with pitch-perfect observations about manhood, marriage, middle age, and the rituals we all enact as part of being alive.
From “a real force in American fiction” (Sam Lipsyte), a startlinglyoriginal novel about the psyche of the American male.
Title availability
Find this title on
MeLCatAbout
Details
Publication
- New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2016]
Opinion
More from the community
Community lists featuring this title
There are no community lists featuring this title
Community contributions
There are no quotations from this title
There are no quotations from this title
From the community