Youth Basketball Drama a
Surprising
Backdrop for Modern Literary
Classic
Coming-of-Age
Tale Examines Roiling World of Teenage Sport
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.
###
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.
MEDIA CONTACT
Serena Ainesly
Amazon: http://amzn.to/XTVj8O
B&N: http://bit.ly/TU7MFi
[[[EXCERPT]]]
PART ONE
ONE
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?)
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