Youth
Basketball Drama a Surprising
Backdrop
for Modern Literary Classic
Coming-of-Age
Tale Examines Roiling World of Teenage Sport
“It’s
fascinating to see in which direction Weesner’s quiet, patient,
almost unnerving talent takes him.”
Joyce
Carol Oates, Professor of Humanities and Creative Writing, Princeton
University, Pulitzer Prize Nominee, National Book Award Winner,
Author of Black
Water,
What
I Lived For,
and Blonde
“Weesner
is definitely a man to watch—and read.”
Newsweek
"A
knockout!...Dale [Wheeler's] struggles to win in a world whose odds
are stacked against outsiders…lead to a heartbreaking kind of
disillusionment and courageous maturity."
Dan
Wakefield, Boston Globe
"Winning
the City
tells of a young athlete 'nearly driven out of mind with all that he
knew,'…Theodore Weesner is an extraordinary writer."
Richard
Yates
"Winning
the City
is a fine novel, a crisply written story about a young boy's struggle
to define himself."
James
Carroll, Ploughshares
Highly
acclaimed Literary fiction author Theodore Weesner is back, following
up his “modern American classic” (The
Car Thief) with an
exciting coming-of-age literary drama, set within the background of
inner city youth basketball.
Winning
the City Redux
[ISBN:
978-1-938231-08-7; Literary Fiction; Paperback, US $12.95; ebook, US
$5.99 March, 2013]
is now re-imagined for a new generation of readers to discover.
Written in Theodore Weesner’s signature gritty style, Redux
again breaks through as an enduring piece of literature, even as its
language and plot coalesce to form an enthralling page-turner.
Winning
the City Redux
entertains as it examines new dimensions of classism, corruption,
youth angst and dangerous passion.
ABOUT
THE BOOK
It’s
Detroit, 1961. Fifteen-year-old Dale
Wheeler,
the son
of an unemployed, alcoholic autoworker, has big dreams of
leading
his team to the City Basketball Championship. But his dream is
shattered when Dale—the co-captain and top point guard—is cut
from the team to make way for the son of a big money team sponsor.
His
life in a tailspin, Dale finds a helping hand in Miss Furbish, the
beautiful homeroom teacher whose well-meaning kindness gradually
builds into a potentially dangerous passion. And in his lowest
times, Dale gets a final shot at his dream: A hardscrabble team of
street-ballers that may have what it takes to win the City
Championship.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
Theodore
Weesner, born in Flint, Michigan, is aptly described as a “Writers’
Writer” by the larger literary community. His short works have
been published in the New
Yorker, Esquire,
Saturday Evening Post,
Atlantic Monthly
and Best American Short
Stories. His novels,
including The True
Detective, Winning
the City and Harbor
Light, have been
published to great critical acclaim in the New
York Times, The
Washington Post,
Harper’s,
The Boston Globe,
USA Today,
The Chicago Tribune,
Boston Magazine and
The Los Angeles Times
to name a few.
Weesner
is currently writing his memoir, two new novels, and an adaptation of
his widely praised novel—retitled Winning
the City Redux—also
to be published by Astor + Blue Editions. He lives and works in
Portsmouth, NH.
EXCERPT
This is it. Today is the day. The
first practice of the year after school in the boy's gym. Time to
show the speed, do the deed, take the lead! All these weeks and
months Dale has been able to think of little else. Since last
spring.
Since
forever. Now it’s his turn to be the oldest, the biggest, the
best. Tryouts. But he’s a returning starter and is sure as hell
not trying out. He'll be leading the way, making them pay! His
excitement is such that for days on end he has been telling himself
to be cool. Time to be cool and not a fool. For playing it cool is
the only tool...if you’re out to win the entire goddamn city.
Dale
Wheeler is fourteen all the same, and whatever energy he may be
bringing to his talking-the-talk temperature he doesn’t know how
not to dream. He’s grown an inch and a half since the season ended
last year and is growing still. In this instant he’s pushing up
through five-nine. Sitting at his desk in school he can look at a
forearm and see it growing larger, stronger, longer. Can pump up
bicep-pears before the bathroom mirror at home. One on the left, one
on the right! Pop, pop! Pow, pow! Hey, hey, get outta my way...my
name is Dale Wheeler and I came to play! Besides confidence Dale can
call up conviction in his mind and heart. Secret power leading the
way, making his day! Call me cocky and I’ll make your fat ass pay!
Dale
knows he’s good. There’s no doubt he’s done the work. Like a
saver saving every penny, he’s given himself to little else. At
times it seems it’s all he’s done, all the time, is work-work,
practice-practice. And work some more. And worked on anyway.
Worked into work. Sweated into sweat all over again, before taking
his shower, doing his homework, dreaming his dream. For work, as
every athlete knows, is the key. The more you practice the luckier
you get. Acquire the moves, absorb the steps...and when the time
comes you'll hit the groove no matter some hee-haw in the stands
sputtering about luck and the bounce of the ball.
Dale
has done it, is doing it, will do it. For an athlete is what he is.
Maybe he’s only fourteen but he knows what he knows and he knows
it’s his turn to take them all downtown to win the city! "Here
comes Wheeler," cries the Sportscaster on high. "He takes
the shot! no--he fakes the shot! He fakes the shot!! He drives!
shoots! SCORES! SCORES!! SCORES!!!"
Even
in his sleep at night Dale dreams of winning the city. Moments and
moves from outdoor pickup games under the lights (amazing things
happen in outdoor pickup games) blend in his dreams into games
indoors rocking with all the students and teachers he has ever known
or passed in the hallways of Walt Whitman Junior High. Waking from a
dream with his mind full of rainbows he reminds himself not to go off
the deep end. To settle down.
Don't
be a fool, play it cool! Playing it cool is the only tool!
Everything
is a game. Life, Dale knows, is a game all the way and everything
that happens depends on how you play. It’s something else he knows
he knows. He has no notion of himself as a thinker, or as a smart
ass ninth-grader either, but he knows what he knows and he knows that
everything is a game. That playing it cool is the only tool...when
you’re out to rule.
(Okay,
maybe he is a smart ass, but whoever won the city who wasn’t?)
###
MEDIA
CONTACT
Serena
Ainesly
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