Playing for Pizza

In the northern Italian football league, there's at least one Yank on each of the eight teams. He gets paid. Everyone else is PLAYING FOR PIZZA. NFL veteran Rick Dockery is the quarterback for the Parma Panthers. After single-handedly destroying the Cleveland Browns' chance to win an AFC title, he was fired and run out of the NFL. Playing in Parma is his only option. Christopher Evan Welch's evenhanded delivery is just right for a novel that's part football story and part travel guide. His voice is clear, crisp, and well paced in presenting the wide assortment of teammates and other Parma residents. Playing for Pizza is pure entertainment but probably best suited for football fans. T.J.M. (c) AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

December 24, 2007
Christopher Evan Welch kicks and scores with his engaging narration of Grisham's charming tale of touchdowns and tortellini. Rick Dockery, a 28-year-old third-string NFL quarterback, is playing for the Cleveland Browns. In the final minutes of a decisive game, Rick is brought off the bench to disastrous results. The Browns lose the game and a chance at going to the Super Bowl. After he is unceremoniously dumped by the team, the quarterback agrees to play for a small but tenacious team called the Parma Panthers—whose playing field is in Parma, Italy. Welch perfectly captures the tone for this humorous and often touching fish-out-of-water story. Welch brings the listener along with Rick, as the young quarterback painfully adjusts to the strange new world he's thrust into. He brings to life Rick's discovery of Italy, with all its history and colorful characters. Especially delicious are the descriptions of the rich Italian foods that Rick and his teammates seem to constantly consume. By the end of the book, listeners will be seeking out the nearest Italian trattoria. Simultaneous release with the Doubleday hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 24).

March 1, 2008
Unlike anything else Grisham has written, this almost whimsical novel will baffle many of his devotees. However, it may delight other listeners, particularly die-hard football fans and lovers of Italian cuisine. The story traces the fall and rise of National Football League (NFL) quarterback Rick Dockery, who after a spectacularly bad performance in a playoff game signs with a team in the Italian professional football association. How he adjusts to life in northern Italy and struggles to succeed on the field would make for a charming story if he were drawn more sympathetically, but he's not. What appeal the book does have lies mostly in Grisham's loving explorations of Italian cuisine and culture and in his surprisingly acute analyses of how Americans and Italians play American football. Unfortunately, Christopher Evan Welch's unpolished narration adds nothing to the book's appeal. Recommended with reservations.R. Kent Rasmussen, Thousand Oaks, CA

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