telynor's Full Review: John Grisham - Playing for Pizza
I don't usually read novels that involve sports to any great degree. I'm just not a fan of professional sports, and I tend to find something else to do if confronted with the choice to watch or say, go scrub the bathroom. The bathroom usually wins. That's not to say that I don't know anything about it either.
After my most recent reading adventure, I decided that it was time to read something lighthearted, and maybe even funny, and lift my mood a bit. I had read previous novels by John Grisham, and while this certainly wasn't a thriller, it did look rather fun.
Rick Dockery wakes up in a hospital bed, with a very fuzzy memory, and the only thing that he's really certain of is that he's hurt really really bad, and that something awful happened. As he is gently informed by his agent, Arnie, not only did he actually get to play in a major NFL game (Rick is the backup to the backup quarterback), but he blew the Cleveland Browns certain win by throwing three intercepted passes, causing the Denver Broncos to win in the last few minutes of the game. To say that his professional career is in ruins is an understatement.
So when his agent suggests that it might be a good idea to get out of town, Rick heartily agrees. But when Arnie calls that he has a new job for him -- and as a starting quarterback at that -- Ricks a bit dubious, especially when where he's being sent is the Italian city of Parma. Rick knows nothing about Italy, doesn't speak the language, and when he's told that he's playing American football, it's an entirely new world that's opening up before him.
Not that there isn't problems -- a nasty reporter from Cleveland is heckling him, and a bubble-headed groupie is seeking a paternity claim. And it seems that the gorgeous cheerleaders that his agent promised are no where in sight.
It's a funny novel, full of slice-of-life incidents for Rick, from meeting his teammates which include waiters, a judge, a cook, farmers and construction workers without a pro in sight, all of them looking to Rick to supply that coveted Italian Super Bowl trophy for the Parma Panthers, to the weirdnesses of the judicial system, and driving a Fiat. But then, Rick also finds out about food -- real Italian food and wine, and that there's a very different pace to life here in Italy.
While I had read Grisham's earlier works, I wasn't expecting very much out of this novel except for an evening's entertainment. A good portion of the story is given over to the play of football, some of it in the archaic, arcane language of the huddle, but to balance that are some beautiful descriptions of Italian meals that are mouthwatering, and a part of the world that tends to get overlooked. It's also an amusing novel on being an expatriate and being abroad in circumstances not entirely in our control. Most of all, it's a cheerful novel, about a man having to figure out what to do when his life goes flying apart and he has to figure out a way to cope and get his life back together -- something that no one is ever really taught how to do until they're in the middle of it all.
So don't expect any great ideas or theories here, but instead, open up a good bottle of wine, settle in with this book, and have several hours to relax and go along for the ride. It's worth it. Overall, it's about three and a half stars, upgraded to four, since I still can't give half stars.
This is my review #26 in CopeSullivan'sFifty Reviews by Halloween Write-Off. Find out more by clicking here.
Playing for Pizza
John Grisham
2007; Doubleday Books
ISBN 978-0-385-52500-8
In John Grisham s new novel, a one-time American football star signed to Italy s Parma Panthers becomes entangled in a series of comic misadventures o...More at Buy.com
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