Customer Reviews

I Dream in Blue: Life, Death, and the New York Giants

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Roger Director's book is most definitely a stream of disconnected musings about his neverending love of the New York Football Giants. Barring a few questionable facts (Eli was not drafted by the Giants), his book is a touching glimpse into the heart of every true Giants fan. From the questionable conception of the team to Tiki's retirement, Director provides a fresh look at the Giants, including the trials that come with being a fan of this fine team. He questions without criticizing and provides an insider look into training camp. A must-read for any Giants fan. I've read it twice and intend to repeat before each NFL season. Go Big Blue!

A curious book that reveals more about the author's worship of temporal player/idols than his knowledge or understanding of football. Updated with new material covering the Giants SuperBowl win; however the original 2006/2007 text demonstrates an astounding dearth of understanding or insight into the mechanics of the team's soon-to-be-found success. Tiki Barber is lauded as the ultimate and indispensible heart of the offense, and Shockey is cast as a better-than-Bavaro, passionate renegade who is only limited by the narrow-minded and petty Coach Coughlin.

Fast forward twelve months, and Coughlin's superstar-less Giants propel themselves to an improbable SuperBowl win. Meanwhile the under-performing Shockey and loud-mouthed Barber are forgotten goats for many Giants fans.

In fact Director has little to teach about football or the Giants, as this book is in-and-of-itself a commentary on America's (and the author's) obsession with individual celebrities.

Despite a number of egregious factual innacuracies, I enjoyed reading Roger Director's I Dream in Blue. That said, nobody familiar with Fred Exley's masterwork A Fan's Notes is likely to confuse that book with this one. It's a nice, at times funny, memoir that should appeal to Giants fans old and young, but beyond a fascinating speculative take on the circumstances surrounding Tim Mara's purchase of the franchise, I Dream in Blue offers little insight into the Giants that has not been covered in greater detail in other books.

Reading this book is like sitting next to the guy who shouts at the field the whole game - you share his enthusiasm, but by the end of the third quarter, you wish he'd pipe down. Director presents a stream-of-consciousness look into the Giants' 2007 season, with an addendum for the 2008 Super Bowl run, and it's fun... for a while. Diehard Giants fans will nod along with sympathy and amusement when the author talks about how his obsession with the team permeated his everyday life, and the author inserts plenty of self-deprecating humor about his run-ins with the Maras and the team. But, the ranting and profanity do get old after a while, and that his two heroes Barber and Shockey are but a memory with the team make this book feel dated before its time.

I have little understanding or affection for football but I loved this book. Director is a pro who followed his quest for connection with the Giants like an amateur who is blindly, madly in love for the first time.
His journey is achingly honest. The scene with his father at Mt. Sinai is horrifying and poetic. Director never allows himself to feel entitled; his hunger for closeness with the team he loves is humbling and beautiful.
Thank you for this great story.

You don't have to be a Giants' fan to love this book. It's an hilarious account of a middle-aged writer consumed by a passion that ceases to grip most of us after we grow up. What makes it so funny, and so moving, is that Director himself knows his passion for the Giants is way over the edge, but he can't stop himself. The juxtapositions are always terrific: in tragi-comic despair after a Giants' loss, Director takes a call on his cell phone from his 13 year daughter who's wondering if this means that he won't be able to sell any copies of his book and the family will go broke. The family comedy is beautifully handled. I highly recommend it.

Are you a sports fan? Do you still root for the team you worshipped at seven? I hear you. So does this raving mad Giants fan whose writing is as sharp and funny as anything out there. It's like he has Tourette's one minute and RLS (Restless Leg) the next.

Somebody gave this as a gift and I loved it. Do somebody (or yourself) a favor and do the same.

I didn't think i'd feel this way when a friend gave me this book because I'm not that big a football fanatic but it didn't take long to get hooked. By page two, I laughed out loud and from there, I couldn't put it down. I Dream in Blue is more than just a book about passion for a particular team or football in general-- it's a uniquely funny and entertaining look at how having a lifelong passion can seep into your bones, inspire your imagination. In ways that are refreshingly unexpected, Roger Director gets at that crazy need we have to nurse an obsession, to have that connection to bigger-than-life drama, along with a perennial something to look forward to and hope for-- in this case, a winning season for the New York Giants-- a hope that taunts Director with visions of Super Bowl rings, only to have them painfully, hilariously dashed. But winning season or losing season, Director's sense of humor and keen eye for the telling details ring true, not just as a wise observer of sports, but an observer of life, his own primarily, make this book stand high above the run-of-the-mill sports tale. a fine, fun read.