I've never been much of a football fan, and I'm even less interested in football players--until just recently, when I've been inexplicably drawn to several books in which the main character is a football player. That just goes to show how books can enlarge your horizons.
John Grisham has written a short book, Playing for Pizza, which is completely unlike his legal thrillers and can only be described as "cute"--okay, "charming" would work, too.
Rick Dockery was a football hero in high school in Davenport, Iowa, and a promising quarterback in college, but his NFL career has never quite taken off. As the story opens, Rick has just failed so spectacularly on national television in front of all the football fans in the United States that it is clear to everyone but him that his career is over. His agent likes him, though, so he tries valiantly to find a team who will take him, eventually finding a spot for him as starting quarterback for the Parma Panthers. Yes, that's Parma, Italy, as in parmesan cheese. We know that "football" means "soccer" in most of Europe, but who knew that there was American football in Italy? In fact, there really are a few such teams in Italy, comprised mostly of local men who play for the fun of it and also for the postgame pizza. Then on each team there are two or three salaried players from America to lend authenticity.
Rick Dockery is a pretty unsophisticated young man who doesn't even know enough about Italy to be excited about the prospect of visiting there. Naturally he knows no Italian and hated history in college. Can the appeal of Italian food and women ease Rick over his culture shock so that he can lead the Panthers to victory in the Italian Super Bowl? To find out, read Playing for Pizza by John Grisham.
thanks for this post, a good read.