The Throwback Special

January 11, 2016
A real-life football tragedy—the sacking of Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann by New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor in a 1985 game, and the career-ending injury that Theismann sustained as a result—is the foundation of this wryly amusing rumination on manhood and male bonding. Every year for the past 16 years, 22 men have convened at a hotel at an unnamed location off of Interstate 95 to physically re-enact the historic game. What at first seems a slightly screwball form of fantasy football—the men are assigned their roles through a lottery governed by an idiosyncratically detailed set of rules—gradually reveals itself to be a metaphor-rich elaboration of the rules and regulations that shape mature male life. As the men discuss their static marriages and their difficult relationships with their children, the allure of the game—especially the time before the fateful play when “the things that had not happened yet were greater than the things that had happened”—becomes clear. Although Bachelder’s (U.S.!) characters sometimes blend indistinguishably into one another—perhaps not unintentionally—the anxieties and concerns that define them are genuine. One man, considering why people marry, theorizes that “the only thing marriage can really give you is the sense that your life is witnessed by another person.” In one hilarious scene, three men supposedly step out to share a ritual smoke, making it awkwardly impossible for each to reveal to the others that he gave up smoking that year. Filled with subtle humor and incisive insights, Bachelder’s novel will resonate with anyone who has pondered the game of life.

Starred review from December 15, 2015
In this comic dissection of male bonding, a group of men gathers for their yearly celebration and re-enactment of a notorious play in professional football. In their 17th annual gathering, 22 men arrive at a 2 '-star hotel on U.S. Interstate 95 for a weekend of rituals tied to the five seconds in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants sacked Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann and fractured the tibia and fibula of his right leg, ending his career. Bachelder (Abbott Awaits, 2011, etc.) looks at the strange, inane, and obvious things American males deem holy--as well as the many small pains they tend to share without "sharing." Among the weekend's big moments are the lottery assigning each man's role as a real-life athlete from the 1985 game, the viewing of video of the sack, and the re-enactment itself. Bachelder seems able to riff wryly on almost anything. One conversation concerns those whose wives have asked them to sit while urinating. Another details a man's attraction to the women pictured in illustrated children's books. Yet another drifts "inevitably toward vasectomy and time share." Eight delightful pages begin: "It would be difficult to overstate the men's enthusiasm for continental breakfast." As a group, the middle-aged men produce "waves of masculine sound, the toneless song of regret and exclamation." They often talk in a "complex alloy of sincerity and derision." One on one, they may speak quietly of their children and marriages and wonder when "daily life [would] cease to consist of a series of small threats." Bachelder's take on manhood is sharply observed and sympathetic and funny enough to win over even those readers who abhor football and its fans.

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September 1, 2015
This is a book about men. Is it ever! Twenty- two men gather annually to reenact the grotesque football injury (comminuted fractures to two leg bones) suffered when Washington quarterback Joe Theismann was crushingly tackled by New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor in a Monday Night Football game in 1985, remembered years later by millions of football fans. Published to coincide with the event's thirtieth anniversary, the novel takes off from this seemingly unpromising setup to deliver a frequently very funny satire about men in our times, from the ridiculous (the convoluted lottery by which these guys choose their positions for each year's reenactment) to the pathetic (a litany of what the reenactors have occasionally come home to find their daughters and wives doing), but, overall, it's a surprisingly enjoyable and even poignant read. If the trick play resulting in the injury went terribly wrong, Bachelder's unlikely approach is deftly right. This novel may appeal mainly to fanatical football fans who are also readers of literary fictiona restricted market, to be surebut it merits a far larger and more diverse audience.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)