Sport [Hardcover]

Mick Cochrane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 13, 2001

Mick Cochrane follows up his critically acclaimed debut novel, Flesh Wounds, with Sport, the story of a boy's search for order and belonging in a world where the rules keep changing.

It is 1967. Harlan Hawkins is a wise and wily kid with a passion for baseball. He plays first base on his summer league team, obsessively collects baseball cards, and avidly follows the fortunes of his beloved hometown Minnesota Twins. And then his world is suddenly, inexplicably shaken when his mother is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and his hard-drinking, explosive father abandons them. The Hawkins family quickly descends into a kind of awkward struggle for survival, for love and safety, for belonging and self-knowledge, through a series of adventures that are sometimes terrifying, sometimes funny, often both.

At the center of Sport is the boy's mother, shrewdly, crankily intelligent, full of defiant wisecracks and bitter wisdom, driven by her fierce love for her son. She introduces him to the pleasures of dangerous fun and implores him to swing from the heels and hit away, to make his mistakes loud and large.

Harlan is cautiously befriended by George Walker, his baseball coach and neighbor, who does what he can to bring a measure of stability to the boy's life. And when Mr. Walker offers him what looks like a way out, the boy must take stock of what he's learned and make a decision regarding who he is and where he belongs.

Sport is about the tension between two worlds: the world as we wish it to be and the world as it is-- frail and broken, dangerous and doomed, terrible and beautiful. Sport is about learning to love the broken world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Growing up in St. Paul, Minn., in the 1960s, 12-year-old Harlan Hawkins ("Sport" to his father) is having a bad summer. His mother has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, his alcoholic lawyer father has erupted in physical abuse and his obese, older brother, Gerard, is numbing his depression with cigarettes and alcohol. Harlan's only respite from his dismal home life is on the baseball diamond, "where miraculous comebacks were always possible, where I still knew the rules." In a spare but affecting first-person narrative, Cochrane's second novel (after Flesh Wounds) is a winning coming-of-age tale that falters only occasionally. After Harlan's father decamps and neglects to pay child support, his mother's advancing disease leaves the family home a shambles and their finances seriously impaired. Cochrane renders the conditions of Harlan's impoverished childhood with a laid-back, unpretentious grace. It's understandable that Harlan needs a means of psychological escape, which he finds in his baseball card collection ("they weren't so much things to possess as a place to be"). He also receives support from his neighbor and baseball coach, George Walker, who decides to take the boy under his wing and helps get him into a local private school on scholarship. The novel doesn't quite achieve the depth and scope it aims for: one might wish to penetrate the psyche that guides Walker's altruism, or to experience the genuine pain that lies behind Gerard's moody, embittered facade. However, obvious parallels to Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life should attract readers who will then be seduced by the unassuming richness of Cochrane's prose and his gift for subdued yet potent storytelling. (Jan. 12)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Some people should never get married, and when they do, it generally makes for a good story. Mick Cochrane knows this, bless him, and the broken family he gives us in his new novel, Sport, yields both familiar and fresh heartbreak in generous portions. It's also a very funny book."--Richard Russo, author of Nobody's Fool and Straight Man

"Harlan 'Sport' Hawkins is a boy whose love for baseball and innate sense of goodness fuel an American Dream while he lives in a household that is anything but. A modern-day Huck Finn-- honest, faithful, and wise beyond his years-- Sport will steal your heart only to break and reassemble it in a way you'll never forget. Mick Cochrane is a writer of immense talent and Sport is a grand slam."--Jill McCorkle, author of The Cheerleader and Carolina Moon

"What I can tell you about Sport is that it is damn wonderful. There isn't a line in it that doesn't shimmer with truth. Sport teaches us, broadens us, pushes our horizons back and allows us to take in what our hearts already know but won't often admit-- that there is human misery behind every door, all of it unique, all of it deserving of our care and compassion and understanding. Cochrane writes with a sympathetic but unsparing eye and in a style that is economical, energetic, and brilliantly luminous. The characters jump off the page, fully realized and unforgettable. What the hell more can a reader ask of a book."--Duff Brenna, author of Too Cool and The Book of Mamie

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (January 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312269943
• ISBN-13: 978-0312269944
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,363,441 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mick Cochrane was born and raised in St. Paul, MN. He graduated with an English major from the University of St. Thomas and earned a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Minnesota. He is the author of three novels: Flesh Wounds (Nan Talese/Doubleday), which was named a finalist in Barnes and Noble's Discover Great New Writers Competition; Sport, (St. Martin's), selected for the annual New York Public Library's Books for the Teen Age List; and The Girl Who Threw Butterflies (Knopf Books for Young Readers). Currently he is professor of English and Lowery Writer-in-Residence at Canisius College, where he teaches courses in writing and literature, directs the creative writing program, and coordinates the Contemporary Writers Series. He lives in Kenmore, NY, with his wife and two sons.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strength from the Heart, March 21, 2001

By 

Gary Earl Ross (Buffalo, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sport (Hardcover)

In the character Sport, Mick Cochrane gives us a boy who not only endures but learns to celebrate his endurance. While others might fret over misfortune and dysfunction, Harlan Hawkins, Jr., aka Sport, accepts the hand that life has dealt him -- an abusive, obese brother; a tough, bitter but scattershot mother suffering from MS; a brilliant, abusive drunken attorney father; a broken home impoverished by his father's refusal to pay support; and a kind teacher who sees his potential. No matter what befalls him, Sport moves ahead with his life. He is most alive when thinking about baseball or likening events in his life to baseball. In that sense he is like all children, learning to make sense of the world as he grows into it. In this age of the abuse excuse and the twisted psychopathy that passes for characterization, it's nice to encounter a normal character who, like most of us, deals with life as effectively as possible because there is no alternative. By loving his family despite their painfully apparent weaknesses, Sport proves himself the strongest of them all. Quiet strength is the stuff of which true heroes are made. Bravo!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and poignant, January 12, 2001

By 

"roxy_furlong" (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sport (Hardcover)

As good as Cochrane's first book was, Sport is even better. Like Frank McCourt, he adds a unique blend of humour to a tragic life. You instantly feel for the well-developed characters he creates and want to know more about their lives. It is definately a must read.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No Joy in Mudville, January 2, 2002

By 

TundraVision (o/~ from the Land of Sky Blue Waters o/~) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sport (Hardcover)

In the premier story in "Hearts in Atlantis," Stephen King has a wise old character say that some books have a great story and some books have great writing: "read sometimes for the story, Bobby. Don't be like the book-snobs who won't do that. Read sometimes for the words - the language. Don't be like the play-it-safers that won't do that. But when you find a book that has both a good story and good words, treasure that book."

Mick Cochrane's book, Sport, does not knock it out of the park. It has good writing and a story that I wanted to like. The writing was taut and initially moved right along, but ended up "all dressed up with no place to go." This is not really a book about St. Paul - but rather St. Paul is a backdrop for this mostly tragic with only a glimmer of comic story. The older brother reminds me of the older brother on the television series "The Wonder Years." Other than St. Paul street names, the major local tie-in is the Minnesota Twins, which, in a bizarre quirk of fate subsequent to the publication of this bleak novel, are probably doomed as well (if Bud Seilig has his way and his "contraction" is allowed to erase the Twins from existence.)

Mr. Walker, the most "adult" member of this cast, proposes a toast to "Joy in Mudville" with his empty Coke can in hand. That's as good as this book gets. Better bet: "Until They Bring the Streetcars Back" by Stanley Gordon West.