Customer Reviews

First and Last Seasons: A Father, A Son, and Sunday Afternoon Football

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
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2 star:		(1)
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I bought it a week ago, I couldn't put it down and tonight I went to the author's signing at the local mall. If you're from Cleveland and you follow sports, if you're a fan of the grit and character of the Old Browns, if you've ever lost a loved one who had a shared memory of sports with you, this book is a keeper. I was first in line tonight and Dan's face was glowing red as he signed my book: "Thanks for being #1." The book is funny, brutally honest and an east sider's analysis of why things are the way they are in Cleveland. The author is a wild, yarn spinning, beer chugging Irishman who's father smirks right back on death when it smiles on him. I know I'll pick this up again next fall and possibly every fall because it's a piece of history. Dan doesn't paint an optimistic picture of the future of the Browns, but hey, us Clevelander's have embraced losing for decades. We can handle the truth!

I didn't think it possible that anyone could really describe what it was like to grow up in the small Cleveland suburb of Euclid, Ohio, and how it feels to return there as an adult. But Dan McGraw has done just that. Cleveland has been referred to as 'the Land of Oz,' and Dan McGraw's book gives the reader a bitter-sweet taste of what it means to be called a `Clevelander.'

Although I don't personally know Dan McGraw, I grew up right on the Lake Erie lakefront about a mile from where he and his family lived.

His accurate, colorful descriptions of the locations and people in and around the Cleveland area are right on the mark. The book really `tells it like it is' when one is faced with the illness and death of a parent, and one's identity as it relates to their parents and their neighborhood.

What is it like going back to your old neighborhood and finding things have changed but yet remain the same? It is an interesting paradox that really comes out in the story, as does Dan McGraw's attitude as he experiences a myriad of mixed emotions toward life and the city he both loved and hated.

It is a book certainly everyone can identify with, and forces one to raise questions about their own experiences with family and friends, as well as one's upbringing. The book expresses the feeling held by many Clevelanders that growing up in the city by the lake was depressing yet exhilirating, dull yet exciting, comforting yet agitating.

Don't miss this interesting biography of a man who saw through to the inner meaning of what it is to be a son, a father, a caregiver, and a resident of what has got to be the strangest, most unique area in America.

Dan McGraw returns to his hometown to write about the return of a Cleveland Browns team. Somewhat a prodigal son, he also returns to a father dying of cancer. This is the anti-Morrie book, the story of a father and son who didn't ever seem to remain on common ground for long, and their coming to grips with death and their differences. It is not a feel good book, it is filled with depression, fear, profanity, pain, drinking and self examination seems to be closer to self-loathing at times. It is the story of a father and son and the differences that could completely tear them apart, and the compassion and struggle that binds them. It is an honest book, the feelings expressed by McGraw about seeing his father laid out for the wake and the confusion, relief and anger that accompany the grief of death ring true. Paralell to this story is the story of the Browns struggle to reestablish their place in pro football...not a pretty sight.

First and Last Seasons is an honest and at times brutal look at a writer's life at one of those crossroad moments we all have in our lives. In the summer and fall of 1999 Dan McGraw took a leave of absence from his job as a writer for U.S. News and World Report to go home to Cleveland to help care for his dying dad, and to cover the return of the once proud Browns to Northern Ohio. This isn't a warm and fuzzy book, although there are some very emotional moments. It is a story of a middle age man facing his father's death, and his own checkered life and mortality. McGraw is funny and sad and always honest in looking at himself, and his life long love/hate relationships with his father, their football team, and the city that shaped their lives. A great read.

While I applaud the author's honesty, I am saddened by his unnwillingness to grow and change from this experience. For all his just-as-I-am bravada, Mr. McGraw, in the end, seems destined to drink away his life as a means of running away from himself. I found it fascinating -- and a tad pathetic -- that he writes with such confidence about his so-called life. But like his drinking, it's obviously just a way of ignoring the truth. His "drink a beer and do it again" life has that swashbuckling feel of life lived boldly. But it's really a selfish life. And I can't help but wonder when he's going to grow up, look in the mirror and ask himself: Is this how I want my daughter to remember me when I'm gone? When she writes her book on me? I can't remember when I've read a book that offered so little hope or inspiration.

I must admit being prejudice about this book. This book was written for me.

I grew up in Cleveland in the 70's and 80's and was a big Cleveland Brown's fan. I actually attended the last Championship game a professional Cleveland team won...the 1963 NFL title game. So, I understand the pain Clevelander's have experienced for the past 40 years.

McGraw moves back to Cleveland to spend time with his Father who is dying and to cover the first year experience of the "new" Browns. It sounds like a smaltzy experience, but it is anything but.

The power of the book is the complete honesty that McGraw relates about his Dad and himself. There is no sugar coating of the "good and bad" about their character and their relationship.

McGraw also gives an accurate description of how Cleveland has been homogenized into "any town" USA and gives a feel for today's predictable NFL machine. I'm one of those "don't care about the new Browns" type.

I would love to sit down and have a beer with Dan in one of those old crappy Cleveland bars.

The book was supposed to be about the author spending the first season of the Brown's with his dying father. But like so many things in life it does not go exactly as planned and the father dies after the first preseason game. The author improvises a little and does backwards looks at his relationship with his father. He also examines the strange relationship between a town and its team. The town pays for the stadium to bring the Brown's back, but it is not really a team of the common Clevelander, which is probably true of most of the NFL. While these are the two main topics (the author's relationship with his father and the new Browns) the author bounces around on other topics such as his own drinking issues and race relations in America (or at least Cleveland). In almost every topic he touches he shows how life is almost more complicated and messy that it seems it should be. Overall, a good read for football fans.

Dan McGraw made me laugh at deathbed tales and cry about football and it was well worth every page.

In Tom Brockaw's Greatest Generation he details the personal accomplishments of the World War II generation. In Dan McGraw's First and Last Seasons one of their progeny reflects on their role as parents. Not surprisingly, you wouldn't find WW II vets sipping chardonnay, or sitting about a campfire connecting with their inner self and their offspring. These stoic, hardworking folks never read self help books, and their favored form of communication was action: they led by example. At its worst this might include racism, sexism, homophobia, and alcoholism. And perhaps, at its best, there were the shared thrills and disappointments of professional football. Alternating dark/ brooding and hilariously funny this is a wonderful memoir for those middle-aged offspring of that epoch. Ultimately Mr. McGraw is enlightened by the fact that, like himself (ourselves), the Greatest Generation at least tried to be at their best as parents. As a kid, you can't really ask or expect anything more.

I read Albom's Tuesday's With Morrie and felt I had just read a book based on fortune cookies at a Chinese restaurant. Be kind to others; stop and smell the roses. This book is much more complex, much more real, and much more enjoyable. When Dan McGraw wries about his father, he does so with a loving eye, but also with the knowledge of the faults his father had. This book is the only book I have read about fathers and sons that is not so sappy as to make you gag. So honest, I felt uncomfortable reading it at time. Kudos to Dan McGraw for doing a book that is so different from the rest of the genre.