Foul Lines: A Pro Basketball Novel » (Bargain)

Jack Mccallum has been at Sports Illustrated since 1981 and the chief NBA writer since 1985. His work has appeared in the Best American Sports Writing Anthology, and in 2004 he won the Basketball Hall of Fame's Curt Gowdy Media Award for outstanding writing. He is the author of Unfinished Business: On and Off the Court with the 1990-91 Boston Celtics and coauthor of Foul Lines: A Pro Basketball Novel. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

L. Jon Wertheim, who has been at Sports Illustrated since 1997, is the author of Venus Envy and Transition Game: How Hoosiers Went Hip-Hop. His work has appeared in the Best American Sports Writing Anthology. He lives in New York City.

From two senior Sports Illustrated writers comes an explosive, fast-paced satire that will do for today's NBA what North Dallas Forty did for the NFL a generation ago.

Just months from his Yale graduation, street-smart whiz kid Jamal Kelly leaves school to take a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the front office of the Los Angeles Lasers. Once on the West Coast, Jamal gets a quick introduction to a subculture awash in big egos and fast cars, as well as an introduction to the charms of the team's new hard-charging beat writer, Jilly Forrester.

In the spirit of Primary Colors and The Devil Wears Prada, Foul Lines peels back the curtain on the trappings of big-time professional basketball. No other sport encapsulates so many cultural hot-button topics, and Foul Lines at once exposes and lampoons this parallel universe.

Publishers Weekly

Years of behind-the-scenes reporting fuel this fast, funny basketball expos from Sports Illustrated writers McCallum and Wertheim, covering ground both expected (race, sex, the press) and unexpected (reality TV, PR, cars). When the Los Angeles Lasers recruit Yale whiz kid Jamal Kelly to replace their suddenly deceased director of public relations, Jamal finds himself struggling to keep a level head while managing the team brand and the hot shots behind it: players, execs, coaches and one very eccentric team owner. Shocked and seduced by a world of pro sports glitz (strip club lunches, exclusive parties in the Hollywood hills, etc.), Jamal finds support from sexy L.A. Times sports reporter Jilly Forrester and slumping team captain Lorenzen "Lo" Mayne, as well as his own down-and-out brother, Zeke. McCallum and Wertheim take very funny jabs at corporate sponsorship, racialized posturing and professional entitlement. They also manage to cram in the stories of an impressively large cast as they try to deal with the conflicting spheres of team, families and lovers. When a secret that three players have been harboring suddenly surfaces, Jamal must choose between star power and what he knows is right. There's enough plot tension to keep things moving, but it's the insider details that give the book punch. (Feb.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.