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Book 4: Steven Millhauser’s ‘Edwin Mullhouse’
Posted on September 28, 2015 Leave a Comment
This week, Football Book Club will be reading Steven Millhauser’s Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright and talking about Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear — and the sadness of life without the NFL. Pulitzer Prize-winner Millhausuer’s debut novel operates as a biography of the late Mullhouse — the fictional […]
Her Headspace: On ‘Brain Fever’ and the Five Stages of Chicago Bears Grief
Posted on September 27, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Adam Boretz 1. Because my body is a wreck and due to a week of innumerable medical appointments[1] , I read Brain Fever in a fragmented, desultory fashion: in fits and starts and fragments — a poem or two in waiting rooms or between visits to neurologists and physical therapists and physicians. The effect was […]
Torrential Output From Meager Input: On ‘Brain Fever’ and Transcending Any Available Evidence
Posted on September 25, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Dan Bjork 1. When I was 19, David Hume hit me like the holy ghost. It’s a typical story really: In high school, I was a slightly above-average student who hid inside the security of playing socially acceptable sports; a 10th-grade honors English open essay assignment found me sunk inside The Waste Land (which […]
Undercounted Stars: The Elliptical Coolness of ‘Brain Fever’
Posted on September 24, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Yona Harvey I finally broke down and told my family I wasn’t watching football this season. I heard a collective, audible gasp. It was a major say-what-now? moment. The general consensus: that’s family time! Followed with: OK, player. Suit yourself. On the one hand, my family’s response meant I’d described our NFL bonding time […]
So Much to Say: On Mark Strand, Dorsey Levens, and ‘Brain Fever’
Posted on September 23, 2015 Leave a Comment
By Rob Casper 1. This weekend was difficult. I knew the Packers were playing the Seahawks, for the first time since last year’s disastrous NFC championship. Aside no. 1: To my mind, the only thing worse than being a Packer fan after last year’s NFC championship is being a Seahawks fan after the Super Bowl […]
Book 3: Lawrence Wright’s ‘Going Clear’
Posted on September 21, 2015 Leave a Comment
This week, Football Book Club will be reading Lawrence Wright’s Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief and talking about Brain Fever by Kimiko Hahn — our selection from last week — and life without the NFL. Pulitzer Prize-winner Wright’s Going Clear promises to be reveal tons of super creepy details about the Church of Scientology, […]
What We Mean When We Say Earned: On ‘Winesburg, Ohio,’ Fact-Based Beatings, and the Fight Against Toxic Masculinity
Posted on September 16, 2015 6 Comments
By Dan Bjork I thought I found my hook for Winesburg, Ohio early on, in the “Mother” chapter, soon after we spent the previous pages with Whig Biddlebaum, formerly the Pennsylvania school teacher Adolph Myers, falsely accused of being improper with his students, now in hiding in the town of his aunt. The trauma of his former life […]
Book One: Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio’
Posted on September 9, 2015 Leave a Comment
As the NFL season begins in earnest and the games actually matter — well for some teams, that is — FBC will be reading Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Published in 1919, this story story cycle — which launched Anderson’s career and follows the life of protagonist George Willard in the titular small town — is ranked #24 on […]
Building Something: On Childhood Memories, ‘Against Football,’ the New York Jets, and My Future Kids
Posted on September 7, 2015 3 Comments
By Dan Bjork When I signed up for this, I didn’t think my chances of making it were all that good. I thought, best case scenario: I’d schedule my Sunday workout for Jets’ kick-off and most of the time they’d be well on their way to losing by the time I finished — it’d be easy enough […]
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