Ten Points (Hardcover)

by Bill Strickland (Author) "SHE WAS SHIMMYING AROUND ON THE TOILET THERE IN her bathroom, my daughter, and swinging her feet against me as I sat on the floor,..." (more)
Key Phrases: dream box, bike lengths, purple jersey, Charlie Mexico, Thursday Night Crit, Cheese Curl (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. The executive editor of Bicycling magazine explores childhood, fatherhood and cycling in this moving memoir about the legacy of child abuse and the healing power of sport and family. In Emmaus, Pa., in 2004, 39-year-old Strickland decided to take up a near-impossible challenge proposed by his preschool-aged daughter Natalie, to score 10 points in a single season; to do so, he has to place among the top four-ten times-in a local weekly race populated by Olympians and cycling legends. Alternating between present-day life and dispatches from his horrific childhood, Strickland introduces his sadistic father, a man who put a loaded gun in his son's mouth, made him eat dog feces and encouraged him to have sex with his babysitter, among other outrages. Strickland juxtaposes these episodes with scenes of his own shortcomings: unbridled anger with his daughter and marital infidelity with a colleague. It's only through numerous races (and missed points) that he learns to tame the inner demons that threaten his new family. Strickland's lyrical prose and swift pacing lighten the material's weight, but it remains a necessarily brutal read that goes several shades darker than most sports memoirs; though non-cyclists may get bored during the race scenes (and there are plenty), anyone dealing with familial abuse will find Strickland's journey an inspiration.
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From Booklist
When the executive editor of Bicycling told his four-year-old daughter that he would win 10 points during a single amateur bike-racing season, he knew he had made a promise that was almost impossible to keep. To win a point, a competitor has to be among the first four finishers in a race, and Strickland, a writer not a racer, was going up against the elite, men and women who dedicate their lives to the sport. But, being a man who loved his little girl, he took on the challenge and discovered that it wasn't really about the racing at all: it was about being the best father he could be and about coming to terms with the memories of his own abusive childhood. The sports-as-spiritual-therapy theme has been explored plenty of times, and perhaps Strickland doesn't offer any blindingly new revelations, but his book is honest, and he doesn't waste our time with banal observations or facile psychologizing. He is also a very talented writer, and readers should brace themselves for some very moving—and also some rather unsettling—passages. Pitt, David

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (June 27, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401302580
• ISBN-13: 978-1401302580
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #420,090 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riding to, Riding From a Life, February 4, 2008

By	Leslie Reissner "Sprocketboy" (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Ten Points" is the story of Bill Strickland, Executive Editor of Bicycling magazine, and how one summer he promised his daughter Natalie that he would earn ten points racing in the Thursday criterium bike race near their home in Lehigh, Pennsylvania. Bill is in his late 30s, by his own account a racer of impressively modest accomplishment, and his competitors are a motley assemblage of some of the top racing talent in the United States. His odds of getting ten points are pretty poor as he starts his quest but he wants to keep the promise to his daughter. But the challenge extends far beyond the ten points as Bill Strickland turns what on the surface appears to be a middle-aged man's quixotic quest into his need to use the bicycle to bring meaning into his life. He wants to use the discipline, the pain and even the anger of bike racing to overcome his past and build something stronger and more meaningful with his family.

This book is not really about bike racing, but the accounts of the Thursday night races are wonderful in their detail and drama. The other racers-with nicknames like the Animal, Speed, Bird, Steak and Purple Jersey, are talented and dedicated but they seem to operate at a totally different level than even well-trained hobby athletes. The author learns with each session out on the road, but all too often he lacks the physical ability to keep pace. The description of amateur bike racing, and what goes on in your mind as you try to work the pack, is exceptional.

As well-told as the racing sequences are, what makes the book rivetting is the author's juxtaposition of his life with his wife and daughter, with their domestic vignettes and his loving details of his little girl growing,, with his own childhood where the accounts of the abuse inflicted on him by his father are so appalling they come at you from the page with the quality of a nightmare, as if you are not actually reading what is on the page. It has taken courage to write this and skill to make the reader stay with the story in spite of all natural inclinations. But going for the ten points is part of Bill's therapy, the way he comes to terms with what he is and how, as a loving father and husband, he must act to protect his family from the self-destructive monster inside of himself.

As time passes, Bill learns not to try to win each race but to merely stay at the front and fit into the rhythm of the pack. He reads the other riders and discovers that he has an exceptional talent for riding in the rain but he can only use this as long as the officials do not end the race prematurely. He discovers that if he allows the anger inside himself to speak uncontrolled, it will cause accidents and not gain him points.

The season moves inexorably towards the end and Bill has become a better rider but is still not up to ten points. It will take a small miracle to get there but Bill's realization towards the end is that there are small miracles around him that speak more importantly to who he is. Throughout the book one can sense his sense of wonder at fatherhood and his recognition of the sometimes painful compromises needed to make a marriage work, and the bright rewards of love.

Ten Points is beautifully written. Holding up the mirror is often painful to those who must gaze upon it but Bill Strickland looks back as a real bike racer and, more importantly, an honest man. And that's worth a lot more than ten points.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ten Points, July 17, 2007

By	J Johnson (WA) - See all my reviews

Ten Points is much more than a book about bicycling. Bill Strickland takes us to places we don't want to go but can't stop reading about. Few of us know the thrill and pain of competitive cycling. Unfortunately, many of us know the pain of abuse at the hands of someone who should be our protector. This book is astonishing, appalling, and inspirational all rolled into one. Strickland achieved 10 points.Ten Points

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fast read but not re-read material..., April 22, 2009

By	E. Ip (Richmond, VA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am an avid cyclist and not-a-very-good racer much like the author, as such, I had high hopes for this book. The book has humorous (interactions with his daughter) and sad (about his childhood) moments. But at the end I felt "jipped". It felt unresolved; I waited for the punchline but it never came. While I understood the motive, correlating his struggles as a cyclist with his childhood seemed like a stretch to me.

If you are looking for a fast read that is almost entertaining, go ahead and read it. Look elsewhere if you want something a bit more fulfilling.