Review of "Kelli's Pine"

While I have been reading more fictional books lately, I can honestly say that this one grabbed me in a way that no other fictional book had, sports or otherwise.  I will stop short of saying this is the best one I have ever read.  Just as I don't like "GOAT" arguments in sports, I don't like picking just one book as the "best."  I'll just say that this one is definitely high on my list of favorites.  Here is my review of "Kelli's Pine."

Title/Author:

“Kelli’s Pine” by Jay Grochowski

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (Excellent)

Review:  Most sports fiction books that I have read will deal mostly with the sport and the role it plays in the characters’ lives in some way.  In “Kelli’s Pine”, an excellent novel by Jay Grochowski, the sports that are involved in the story are important, but not the driving force in the book and that is a good thing for this story. 

The book revolves mainly around three characters – Eddie Blackburn, his wife Kelli and their son Cole.  Eddie did not finish high school because he had to rescue the family business of providing and servicing portable toilets.  This became necessary when his father left his wife and family with not only the business but also a $40,000 gambling debt.  Eddie succeeded in making the business work, but at the cost of his dreams of playing professional baseball.

Kelli Swanson was a star basketball player in high school and her father was a legendary athlete in their hometown of Mankato, Minnesota as well.  However, she and Eddie had an instant connection and one night near a pine tree where they shared their first Christmas, Cole was conceived.  Kelli and Eddie married shortly after Kelli discovered she was pregnant.  While this, along with knee surgery ended her basketball dreams, Kelli and Eddie raised Cole well and he became a baseball star through a program run by Eddie. 

The baseball scenes in the book after Cole signed with the independent league Mankato Carp are excellent in describing his baseball talents. If a reader wants to find a comparison, Cole could be considered a fictional version of Shohei Ohtani with talent in both hitting and pitching.  But overall, there is not a lot of baseball in the book – enough for a fan to enjoy it, but it is far from the main theme of the story.  The same goes for basketball – even though Kelli and Eddie’s sister Krissy played on a championship team, the basketball scenes are short but very descriptive.

What makes the book so good and one that would be enjoyed by many readers – sports fans or not – is that it covers a wide range of topics and also has great character development.  To start, it might be considered by some to be a romance novel with the story of Eddie and Kelli’s relationship and how it remained strong.  It touches on mental health with both Kelli and Cole suffering from social anxiety disorder.  The story has a lot of family dynamics at play.  Not just with the three main characters, but also others in both the Blackburn and Swanson family.  Nearly every parent, grandparent and sibling in both families have their character developed and the reader will walk away knowing more about them.

Because these characters are well-developed with admirable characteristics and some flaws, the reader will have a hard time picking any one to be a bad person.  This is even true for the two fathers – Eddie’s and Kelli’s father, who attacked Eddie when he found out his daughter was pregnant.

Hopefully, I have not given away too much of this story because one has to read every word to get all that a reader should get from this book.  It is one of the few books I have received that I have read more than once and that is why this review is later than what I promised to the author – I had to read it a second time before writing this so that I could fully digest this excellent story.

I wish to thank the author for providing a review copy of the book. The opinions expressed are strictly my own.

Link: Kelli's Pine (The Blackburn's of Mankato): Grochowski, Jay: 9798629296379: Amazon.com: Books

 

Review of "Playing Hurt"

This book has the most powerful message of any book I have read since starting this blog over four years ago.  From the very first page, this was a gripping story and I could not put it down. For those who watched the late John Saunders on ESPN, this book will really leave a mark on their souls.  This is my review of his memoir written with John U. Bacon, "Playing Hurt."

Title/Author:

“Playing Hurt: My Journey From Despair to Hope” by John Saunders with John U. Bacon

Tags:

Sports Broadcasting, ice hockey, memoir, behavioral health

Publish date:

August 8, 2017

Length:

328 pages

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (outstanding)

Review:

This is not a typical memoir of a sports figure. In the very beginning, John Saunders talks about his thoughts of suicide by describing a trip across New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge across the Hudson River.  From there, he opens up about the demons that he lived with while battling depression through his entire life until his death in 2016.  This memoir written with John U. Bacon is raw, soul-bearing and a book that a reader will have a hard time putting down.

Saunders was an award-winning broadcaster, best known for his work on the ESPN show “The Sports Reporters.”  He also covered college football and basketball as well as hockey for the network.  The native Canadian was a good hockey player in his youth, eventually playing college hockey in the United States.  When an injury and lack of commitment to the game made him realize he had to do something else for a career, he turned to broadcasting and worked in smaller Canadian cities, Toronto and then Baltimore before ESPN.

Through all of this, Saunders was constantly filled with self-doubt and depression.  In the book, he talks of the physical abuse he endured from his father and the sexual abuse from a female friend of his parents.  He talks of his hurting himself by burning, his troubles with intimacy that resulted in a failed marriage and the constant doubt he had in both his hockey and broadcasting career.  He eventually righted himself to have a good career and a loving marriage with two daughters, but even then he battled demons.  If he wasn’t doubting himself about being a good father, he sank into depression after reading social media postings criticizing his work.  All of this on top of a serious concussion when he blacked out doing a college football show makes his story even more amazing.

What made this book a very gripping read was not only the rawness of this story, but how much he realizes what is happening and yet he feels powerless to control it.  He has great respect for the doctors who helped him and much love for not only his wife and daughters but also for his colleagues who showed their support for him as well.  It is a powerful work that shows how mental health issues can be hidden from the outside world but can deeply affect the people who are suffering.  When Saunders shared his time spent in the psychiatric wing of a hospital and two other patients with whom he formed friendships, it was such a moving message illustrating how people who are suffering share a common bond.

This is a book that must be read – not only to learn more about depression and what it can do, but also to gain an understanding of the man whom many spent each Sunday morning listening to in order to catch up on the sports news. I was always a fan of The Sports Reporters and Saunders, but now I have an even more deep respect for what he did and the legacy he left behind. 

I wish to thank Da Capo Press for providing a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Format Read:

Paperback

Buying Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-Hurt-Journey-Despair-Hope-ebook/dp/B01JZ2QLHE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1503967341&sr=8-1&keywords=playing+hurt+john+saunders

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/playing-hurt-john-saunders/1123900210?ean=9780306824739