The Franchise Babe: A Novel [Hardcover]

Dan Jenkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 3, 2008

The legendary Dan Jenkins returns with another bawdy, over-the-top novel of hijinks on the links – this time, the LPGA gets the treatment

Jack Brannon, a golf writer in his forties who has been bunkered more than once in the marriage game, covers the sport for the big-time magazine SM. Lately he’s been bored out of his mind writing about the PGA Tour, which he says has become “Tiger and a bunch of slugs playing pushover courses.” So he decides to check out what he calls “the Lolitas,” a new breed of young chicks on the LPGA Tour. Jack chooses as a magazine subject Ginger Clayton, a fiery eighteen-year old with flowing blond locks, legs up to here, and a personality that combines mischief with confidence. With her killer looks and killer game, Ginger looks very much like the kind of star who can take the LPGA to the next level of excitement and acceptance. She is, indeed, The Franchise Babe, and everyone seems to want a part of her.

Jack’s interest in Ginger’s career might have something to do with her mother, Thurlene Clayton, a knockout herself who looks plenty okay in a jacked-up mini-to use Jack’s description of her outfit. As Ginger shows her grit on the ladies’ tour, the greedy hordes looking to benefit from the kid’s talent and personality aren’t the ones who worry Thurlene-and Jack-the most. Someone is trying to knock Ginger out of the competition-permanently.

Jenkins captures the growing buzz around the Franchise Babe and all the insane and hilarious things that happen when the sports world anoints someone new to the throne of super-stardom. Along the way, Jenkins issues bawdy, dead-on takedowns of selfish sports moms, gasbag corporate sponsors, adventurous promoters, sleazy sports agents, point-missing magazine editors, and all the other modern annoyances that make life hard for a guy who, as they say in Texas, is just tryin' to get by without gettin' hurt.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Jenkins's outrageous sports satire (after Slim and None), middle-aged sportswriter Jack Brannon is sick of writing about Tiger Woods and the boring testosterone-charged PGA tour. So the swaggering Texan decides to check out the ladies of the LPGA, specifically hot teen sensation and fellow Texan, Ginger Clayton. She's a fiery eighteen-year-old blonde with the potential to become the next golf superstar (or, in pro golf parlance, a real franchise babe). Soon, Jack is impressed by Thurlene, Ginger's gorgeous single mom, and enamored of Ginger's talent, beauty and precocious professionalism. He decides to tag along, taking notes and observing the peculiar peccadilloes of professional sports—including crazed stage-golf moms and others who'll stop at nothing to get ahead in the high-stakes game. Jenkins pokes fun at the golf world eccentricities he knows so well and allows Jack major leeway in making smart-mouth commentary as he falls in love and gets a great scoop. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Jenkins, the dean of contemporary golf writers, delivers a rollicking broadside aimed at women’s golf. Our narrator, golf journalist Jack Brannon, weary of the Tiger-dominated PGA Tour, has decided to check out the LPGA’s Franchise Babe, 18-year-old Ginger Clayton, who seems primed to challenge the plethora of Korean women dominating the tour. The tale follows Ginger as she moves through several minor tour stops leading up to a major tournament, the Dinah Shore, renamed the Lagoutte-Dinah Cup in honor of a big-bucks Frenchman attempting to corner the U.S. market for horse meat (the commercial sponsorship of golf tournaments is only one of the many targets at which Jenkins slings his satirical arrows). But will the Ginger Express be derailed by golf’s version of Tonya Harding? The laughs pour forth as Jenkins delivers politically incorrect body blows with an inspired randomness that suggests Jackson Pollack attacking a canvas with an overflowing paint bucket. But, as always with Jenkins, the golf is as precisely and knowledgeably described as the jokes are scattershot. Great fun for golf fans, who will have a ball filling in real names for fictional characters. --Bill Ott

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1 edition (June 3, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385519109
• ISBN-13: 978-0385519106
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 0.9 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #983,524 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 30, 2008

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Bob the norske "norske60" (North Port, FL USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Franchise Babe: A Novel (Hardcover)

As an old Dan Jenkins fan, I found this one disappointing. His protanganist, a witty, sophisticated golf writer keeps lapsing into moronic red neck political commentary that is totally out of character for him. He includes a scene of a group of leftie's picketing against the FRENCH, as if that were some kind of liberal cause as opposed to a Bill O'Reilly obsession.

Aside from playing out his fantasies of animal magetism with the sexiest woman in sight, an understandable indulgence for an aging writer, a good bit of the plotting is predictable and boring.

Sorry to see such a weak effort from the old pro.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For Dan Jenkins collectors only..., June 4, 2008

By 

Jeff "JB" (Southlake, TX) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Franchise Babe: A Novel (Hardcover)

Let me preface my review by saying I'm a Dan Jenkins fan and devotee. But, his latest novel "The Franchise Babe" was a disappointing and short read. He recycles many old jokes and character profiles from previous novels; "Ya Gotta Play Hurt", "Dead Solid Perfect" and "Slim and None". The lead character, Jack Brannon, is basically Jim Tom Pinch lite. The jokes aren't as funny the second time around.

The only fun part about the novel was Mr. Jenkins cynical assessment of the PGA and LPGA tours. The new wave of female stars; Creamer, Gulbis, Kerr, etc. (Lolitas in Jenkin's slang) really are a breath of fresh air. I agree that Tiger is whipping up on a bunch of "fat & happy" slugs content with Top 10 finishes, wine cellars and their investment portfolios.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jenkins Has Lost Nothing Off the Hop on His Fastball., December 25, 2008

By 

John R. Linnell (New Gloucester, ME United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Franchise Babe: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read them all...from Dead Solid Perfect to this one. Jenkins sometimes wavers a tad, but just between you and me, every now and then you need a Dan Jenkins novel to scrape off the crust of the politically correct climate out there and get down to the nitty gritty of life and not take things so seriously.

You either like this type of writing or you don't and clearly some on here who have reviewed this novel have their knickers in a bunch and that's OK, because if some people don't react that way, Jenkins hasn't done his job.

My only real complaint about this book is that it should have been longer. It is just too much fun reading the thinly veiled satire of the PGA Tour as well as the LPGA Tour management. For instance, Ginger Clayton could have had a few more problems on her way to being the "franchise babe."

Jenkins still has a lot of hop on his politically incorrect fastball which is one of the reasons that I love his writing so much. Those of us who follow the tours understand where Dan is coming from. Carolyn Bivens, the current LPGA Commissioner is never mentioned by name, but she is very much the one in the book who is "off to Denmark" during the playing of an LPGA major which she has turned over to a Frenchman who has some really politically incorrect aspects of his businesses.

Well done satire is an art and Jenkins confines his to what he knows best...sports. If it is your cup of tea, hop on board. Better yet...make it a Bombay Sapphire martini with four olives and get into the spirit of the thing.