Blind Your Ponies

October 18, 2010
In this originally self-published hit, the small town of Willow Creek, Mont., is the place where dreams go to die. English teacher and basketball coach Sam Pickett hasn't won a game in five seasons and decides to quit coaching, but he changes his mind after getting a look at the 6-ft.-11 Norwegian exchange student, Olaf Gustafson. Sam's other recruits include Tom Stonebreaker, whose drunken father would rather see him working the family farm, and Peter Strong, who moves in with his hippie grandmother after his parents' divorce and would rather be back home in Minnesota with his girlfriend. As the team coalesces around Olaf and begins winning games, their march toward the state tournament inspires Willow Creek and ignites a touching romance between Sam and his assistant coach. If the novel is a little too long, its sentiments worn too shamelessly on its sleeve, and its symbolism a little too obvious (Sam dubs the team bus "Rozinante" in honor of Don Quixote's steed), this uplifting story about the triumph of human decency is sure to be enjoyed by those who fondly recall another David vs. Goliath roundball yarn—Hoosiers.

November 15, 2010

Elegiac but hopeful novel, originally self-published, about the redemptive power of people—and, of course, roundball.

Sam Pickett is a mess of a man. He has a good excuse, having witnessed his wife's murder in a fast-food joint back in the big city, with bits and pieces of her "spattered on the wall, shrapnel from her head, small bits of brain and bone, skin and hair, sailing down the stainless steel on a sea of gore." Yuck, you may say—and so does he, dropping everything, only to rediscover himself in a small town in Montana, tucked away in a valley surrounded by tall mountains and only a single paved road. "It was hard to tell where the fields and cow pastures ended and the town began," writes West (Finding Laura Buggs, 1999, etc.), making it a fine place for Pickett to leave the world behind. Alas, no such luck, for in his new role as high-school teacher and emissary from civilization, he finds himself called on to make Willow Creek a better place by giving its residents something to live for in the form of a decent basketball team. He recruits an improbable Scandinavian exchange student ("Olaf, you're the most dangerous center in the tournament...a Maalox Moment for all opposing teams"), rounds up a few other sports fans, enlists the townies and works his way through angst, a sort of outtake from Hoosiers without the DTs. The story almost begs to be layered in cliché, but West steers clear of it and of sentimentality; his characters act and speak as real people as they make their way toward the satisfying conclusion.

Worthy of a place in Montaniana alongside Ivan Doig and Deirdre McNamer, this is a modest tale, elegantly written—and, in the bargain, there are multiple sightings of Man of La Mancha for the Dale Wasserman fans in the audience.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010
With 93 consecutive losses behind him, Sam Pickett, high-school basketball coach in tiny Willow Creek, Montana, sees the stars align for him as a new season starts. Added to two returning seniors and a benchwarmer sophomore are a transfer junior with a sweet outside shot, a 6-foot-11-inch totally inexperienced Norwegian exchange student, and a short but speedy freshman. With the help of teacher Diana Murphy and townspeople including an obese cafeteria worker and a one-handed grandmother who scrimmage with the team, Sam hones the players skills and preaches teamwork and determination. Ending the losing streak at 97 lifts spirits throughout the town, many of whose residents have suffered lossesof a spouse, a child, a true loveor endured wrenching hardships, and the team is just beginning. This previously self-published best-seller is too long, too overt in its analogies, too repetitious in its theme, and often too melodramatic and flowery. Yet, as it celebrates the indomitable spirit of Don Quixote, this fervent feel-good fairy tale of a novel is likely to warm all but the most cynical hearts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)