The Oct. 14 StarNews includes my review of “Love’s Winning Plays,” the new novel by Inman Majors from W.W. Norton.
It takes as its motto “What it was, was football,” as uttered by North Carolina’s own Andy Griffith. But none of the action occurs during a game or goes very near a stadium. There’s only one scene in a locker room.
Instead, the hero, hapless coach-wannabe Raymond Love, is dragged along as a go-fer and assistant on the “Pigskin Cavalcade,” an SEC coach’s annual golf-club tour to schmooze up the big-money boosters.
The inherently absud situation gives Majors (“Wonderdog,” “Swimming in Sky:) a chance to riff on what appear to be some of his pet peeves: Football players and coaches who chew gum with their mouths open, TV sports dudes (and even print sportswriters) who murder and mutilate the English language, and novels that include l0ts of recipes.
There are no recipes in “Love’s Winning Plays.”
There is a lot of fun, though, at the expense of book clubs. Love’s girlfriend, Brooke, insists on his joining her book club — a club devoted to reading “foodie” books, or at least novels with recipes in them. (One of them is the best seller “Feast, Travel, Meditate.”)
Anyway, like so many novels these days, “Love’s Winning Plays” concludes with a list of questions for book club discussion. Here, as so often, I gather Majors’ tongue is firmly planted in cheek. Some samples:
“This book doesn’t talk much about relationships. Despite this fact, did it make you think of a first love? If so, do you think of this first love often? Is there anything you’d do differently, if you were that age again? Tell the group why this relationship came to an end.”
“This book has no recipes or long descriptions of meals. Did the absence of these reader favorites make you think of books that did include lots of food descriptions? If so, what book made you the hungriest while reading? Did the same book make you want to take a cooking class or start a food blog? What is your favorite Italian recipe?
“Reveal an intimate detail about yourself to the group, one you’ve never told anyone else before.”
“What kind of personality do you have? Are you more glass-half-full or glass-half-empty? Talk about yourself for awhile and what you like and don’t like.”
“Life is difficult? Why do you think that is?”