From Publishers Weekly
The 2006 New York Giants were a team whose victories, though not plentiful, offered much hope, and whose ugly losses, far too plentiful, seemed oddly uncharacteristic for a team with such evident talents. Few teams were so frustrating, few talented teams had such poor chemistry, and few playoff teams made so many pivotal mistakes. If they weren't the championship team rabid fan Director clearly hoped for when he commenced this seasonlong memoir, the combination of the author's past Giant-related tribulations and the interest of a team imploding result in a diverting read. A fan of Jeremy Shockey and Tiki Barber, lukewarm but hopeful on Eli Manning and positively brutal on coach Tom Coughlin, Director suffers his way from the Albany training sessions through the promising 6-2 start and the bewildering 2-6 second half to the playoff loss to the Eagles. A more apt title might have been Director's frequent plea of desperation, Someone make a play. In his narrative, Director, a onetime editor of
Sport magazine and coproducer of the sitcom
Mad About You, combines the hangdog obsessive who is an axiom in such books with an otherwise cool veneer of a Santa Monica entertainment veteran.
(Sept.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Director, a writer and TV producer, is a lifelong fan of the NFL's New York Giants. His memoir describes following the Giants throughout the 2006 season, a roller-coaster year in which the team started strong, collapsed, lost an unsatisfying play-off game, and endured the midseason retirement announcement of star-running-back Tiki Barber. What makes this account come to life isn't the play-by-play, though; it's Director's reflections on the nature of fandom—and the mysterious rites in which children are brought into the club by fathers, uncles, and siblings. It's a scenario that has been played out in the childhood of many youngsters who, as adults, wonder why—despite all logic—the final score determines whether one feels aching emptiness or fleeting fulfillment. In addition to looking closely at his own reactions to his team, he provides a jaunty capsule of the Giants, a football club founded in the Depression on a $500 investment by an Irish bookie. A funny, perceptive, and humble examination of why we're fans. Don't miss it. Lukowsky, Wes
