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Paperback Details
  • 03/2022
  • 9781639882403
  • 320 pages
  • $18.99
Richard Paik
Author
A Thing or Two About the Game
Richard Paik, author
Former biotech executive Brad is smart, idealistic, and unemployed. When he stumbles into an arrangement to coach the Marlins, a softball team of 11- and 12-year-old girls, he sets out to accomplish something. But accomplish what? At the outset of the season, he is told that, in this league, it’s not about winning. Brad would just as soon win, but he heeds the directive and chooses a simpler, alternative goal: Teach the game. Coax, cajole, trick and bribe: Teach the girls to run the bases aggressively, throw to the cutoffs, cover bases. The season progresses; the Marlins improve. Brad comes to understand and care about his players. But as the playoffs approach, Brad becomes increasingly aware . . . of rival coaches bending rules; of parental criticisms freely offered to advance their agendas for their daughters; of off-field tactics that twist and distort purposes. Brad struggles to identify and focus on what matters most. For it’s all too familiar. The conflicting motivations and distracting behaviors that have troubled his paths through life and career: Here they are, once again, penetrating even this small world of girls’ softball. This story about softball is also a story about people searching for meaning; it’s about sorting through the tangles, and learning a thing or two about a game.
Reviews
Paik's inspiring debut novel is an assured look at how and why it’s imperative to change traditional definitions of failure and success. The narrative centers on Brad, a former biotech researcher drifting after resigning from his job, where he refused to acquiesce to shady political maneuvers. His ex-wife Stephanie asks him to coach a softball team for 11 and 12-year-old girls as a favor, and despite initially being resistant, Brad eventually agrees. Bantering and battling with his frenemy Mike all while trying to prove something to himself, Brad adapts to his role quickly, teaching the team detailed drills and improving their performance.

As Brad deals with all sorts of outside interference, like intrusive parents and hypercompetitive opposing coaches, his team progresses and bonds with each other. When the season ends, every member takes something important from the experience—none more so than Brad and Mike. Without hammering it home too obviously, Paik makes restrained use of Brad's gardening hobby as a metaphor for how he's helping his players grow, and the politics he encounters as a coach tellingly resembles the nonsense he had to endure as a researcher. On the downside, Mike is slightly undercooked as a secondary protagonist: he's not in the book long enough to be fully developed, but he still takes up a lot of space.

The girls are sometimes presented as a bit of a mystery that Brad has to crack, though Paik wisely focuses on how they relate to their coach and each other in the context of competitive gameplay and their developing chemistry during practices. The emotional payoff in the climax is well-earned, and Paik successfully makes readers feel invested in every character. The theme of taking a chance and getting out of one's comfort zone is reinforced throughout the story, culminating in plot changes that come across as smooth and natural. This is a fascinating exercise in exploring camaraderie and hard work without a particular reward in mind.

Takeaway: This rich character study of a man dealing with a mid-life crisis through coaching is full of small, resonant details.

Great for fans of: Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs, Anne Tyler’s Clock Dance.

Production grades
Cover: A
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: B+

Formats
Paperback Details
  • 03/2022
  • 9781639882403
  • 320 pages
  • $18.99
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