- Hardcover: 176 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (Sep 9 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0385511612
- ISBN-13: 978-0385511612
- Product Dimensions: 21.9 x 14.7 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (288 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #390,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
With Bleachers John Grisham departs again from the legal thriller to experiment with a character-driven tale of reunion, broken high school dreams, and missed chances. While the book falls short of the compelling storytelling that has made Grisham a bestselling author, it is nonetheless a diverting novella that succeeds as light fiction.
The story centers on the impending death of the Messina Spartans' football coach Eddie Rake. One of the most victorious coaches in high school football history, Rake is a man both loved and feared by his players and by a town that relishes his 13 state titles. The hero of the novel is Neely Crenshaw, a former Rake All-American whose NFL prospects ended abruptly after a cheap shot to the knees. Neely has returned home for the first time in years to join a nightly vigil for Rake at the Messina stadium. Having wandered through life with little focus since his college days, he struggles to reconcile his conflicted feelings towards his former coach, and he assays to rekindle love in the ex-girlfriend he abandoned long ago. For Messina and for Neely, the homecoming offers the prospect of building a life after Rake.
Physically a narrow book, Bleachers is a modest fiction in many respects. The emotional scope is akin to that of a short story, with a single-minded focus on explorations of nostalgia and regret. The dialogue, especially that of Neely's friend Paul Curry, is sometimes wooden as characters recall Messina history in paragraphs that were perhaps better left to the narrator. But Grisham has otherwise written a well-made, entertaining--if a bit sentimental--story. --Patrick O'Kelley
From Publishers Weekly
Grisham demonstrated he could produce bestsellers without legal aid with The Painted House and Skipping Christmas, and he'll undoubtedly do so again with this slight but likable novel of high school football, a legendary coach and the perils of too early fame. Fifteen years after graduation, Neely Crenshaw, one-time star quarterback of the Messina Spartans, returns home on hearing news of the impending death of tough-as-nails coach Eddie Rake. Neely knows the score: "When you're famous at eighteen, you spend the rest of your life fading away." It's a lesson he's learned the hard way after destroying his knee playing college ball and drifting through life in an ever-downward spiral. He and his former teammates sit in the bleachers at the high school stadium waiting for Rake to die, drinking beer and reminiscing. There is a mystery involving the legendary '87 championship, and Neely has unfinished business with an old high school sweetheart, but neither story line comes to much. Readers will guess the solution to the mystery, as does the town police chief when it's divulged to him (" `We sorta figured it out,' said Mal") and Neely's former girlfriend doesn't want to have anything to do with his protestations of love ("You'll get over it. Takes about ten years"). The stirring funeral scene may elicit a few tears, but Neely's eulogy falls curiously flat. After living through four hard days in Messina, the lessons Neely learns are unremarkable ("Those days are gone now"). Many readers will come away having enjoyed the time spent, but wishing there had been a more sympathetic lead character, more originality, more pages, more story and more depth.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The road to Rake Field ran beside the school, past the old band hall and the tennis courts, through a tunnel of two perfect rows of red and yellow maples planted and paid for by the boosters, then over a small hill to a lower area covered with enough asphalt for a thousand cars. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
The road to Rake Field ran beside the school, past the old band hall and the tennis courts, through a tunnel of two perfect rows of red and yellow maples planted and paid for by the boosters, then over a small hill to a lower area covered with enough asphalt for a thousand cars. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
He's done it again,
By "nishaajit" (Bangalore, India) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bleachers (Hardcover)
After 'The Painted House' and 'Skipping Christmas', Grisham has once again spun a lovely tale outside the world of law and attorneys...and he has succeeded yet again. In this book, Grisham delves into the heart of a forgotten football hero. Neely Crenshaw is Messina's most famous son until he is forced to stay out of the game due to an injury. Years pass by and Neely battles hard to come to terms with his almost famous status. Eddy Rake, Neely's coach had been instrumental in shaping Neely's illustrious career. Yet Coach Rake's atrocities towards Neely on the football field continues to haunt him. Neely returns to Messina when Coach Rake is dying, partly to introspect if he can bury the ghosts of fame forever and partly, and more importantly to forgive Coack Rake. Neely's touching speech in front of his familiar home crowd is beautifully written. One can't help but relate to feelings of remorse and gratitude. As humans, we have all had feelings of angst, bitterness and frustration towards individuals who have been largely responsible for shaping our lives. It is not until such people leave us forever do their absence become conspicuous. Neely Crenshaw experiences similar feelings.Overall a feel good book. Grisham has written a beautiful and piognant book on human emotions using football strictly as a background.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Game,
By Jamieson Villeneuve "Author at Large" (Ottawa Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Bleachers (Paperback)
John Grisham's new novel, "Bleachers," is another of his forays into regular fiction. I am always wary of when an author tries new things, but after the success of his other non-legal thrillers ("Skipping Christmas" and "A Painted House") I was excited to read this book. Unfortunately, the book failed to excite me.Neely Crenshaw is going back home to Messina, a small Mississippi town, to attend the funeral of his old football coach Eddie Rake. Neely has also come back to chase some ghosts that have haunted him: the lights of the football field, a girl he loved and coach Eddie Rake, a man that Neely loved to hate. Neely left Messina and had not returned for fifteen years. When Neely arrives, the town is already in mourning, though not much has changed in fifteen years. Eddie Rake is, according to rumor, holding on by a thread, close to death and wasting away. Neely stops at the football field, the bleachers, where his life was shaped for him. Neely had been an All American football player, number 19 and famous at eighteen. The bleachers and the field shaped him and made him who he was. Others begin to gather at the field, an impromptu vigil for Rake. As more and more football players arrive, they all begin to rehash the old games, the old plays. Each has a story to tell or a memory of the game, of Rake. The Spartans won thirteen titles, all under the tutelage of Coach Eddie Rake. There are a lot of memories in thirteen titles. Neely also has some unfinished business to take care of. A girl he hurt fifteen years ago. Will she be able to forgive him after all this time? And, as the town continues to mourn, questions are asked: what happened in the game where Neely broke his wrist? What happened in the locker room that day? And what happened to Coach Rake? As Neely tries to decide whether or not he hates or loves Coach Rake, others get ready to wait for Rake's death. They want to know what happened, what went down. Is Neely finally ready to unravel a secret that is fifteen years old? If you love football, you will probably like "Bleachers". I'm not a big football fan, but that didn't take away from the book too much. Grisham's descriptive writing makes you feel as if you are there, as if you can see the sweat on the player's backs. Unfortunately, good writing is all that is good about this book. The book is really short, for one thing; at a slim 163 pages, I was able to finish it in a day. Not much happens, either. There is one plot to the book and it could have been written in ten pages. Basically, in 163 pages, nothing happens. Neely goes home, the coach is buried, a bunch of men reminisce about the past and that's it. There are no surprises here. I found the people in Messina to be lacking as well. The characters are flat with little to no depth and I found I didn't really care whether or not Neely forgave his coach or made nice with his ex-girlfriend. I didn't connect to anyone in this story, which made it hard to care about the book's resolution. "Bleachers" should have been marketed as a short story rather than a novel. While Grisham is able to bring to life small town Mississippi, you may not want to stay there very long. Now, don't get me wrong here: this isn't a bad book; it's just not a particularly good one and certainly not the calibre that we're used to seeing from Grisham. I'd save this one for a quiet afternoon where you can lose yourself in a short story. It's an okay read and it will have football fans drooling for more.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Predictable and Weak,
By
This review is from: Bleachers (Mass Market Paperback)
As I've not read Grisham before, I picked this book up at the library to give him a try. From what I know of him, I sense that this is not him at his best; it is a diversion from his usual thriller/mystery approach.Regardless, this book seemed quite amateur in terms of its plot and outcome. I kept waiting for something 'big' to happen; whatever it was that Neely had to deal with. I kept wondering 'What is the conflict between he and Coach Rake'? I won't give it away, but I was terribly disappointed with what the pages revealed; it wasn't really anything at all. A lot of lead up to a dissapointing climax. I also didn't find the 'emotional' scenes the least bit emotional or riveting. Better luck next time with Grisham. Guess I'll have to try one of his classics.
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