You Gotta Play Hurt - Hardcover

Jenkins, Dan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671683322 ISBN 13: 9780671683320

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1991

Synopsis

Cynical and world-weary, Jim Tom Pinch, a globe-trotting columnist for "The Sports Magazine," juggles assignments around the world and the love both of a colleague at the magazine and of a persistent and ambitious West Coast woman

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

Bawdy, bitter, very funny, and as absolutely tasteless as its subject matter: Jenkins's farewell salute to big-time sportswriting is a tell-all novel that deflates the hype around each and every event, from the Olympics to the Kentucky Derby to Wimbledon. Jim Tom Pinch's job involves hopping from one glamorous sporting event to the next, enjoying the company of Nazi-like Austrian downhill racers, money-whipped American millionaires, egomaniacal college basketball stars, vulgar New York admen, and the insufferable pretensions of his fellow sportswriters. One of Jenkins's (Fast Copy, 1988, etc.) enduring creations, Jim Tom is seemingly the author's alter ego, aging rancorously and sparing no one in a book-length diatribe he's writing (which in fact is the book we're reading). He's fighting a hopeless rear-guard action against journalism's overall decline into Time-Warner-like ``synergistic mediocrity,'' juggling three ex-wives and a wastrel son, and dealing with two younger, lovely, sports-talking, worshipful writers who are both in love with his decaying carcass. The two women and the plot they drag along with them are serious flaws, since Nell and Jeannie are fantasy mates from Playboy and Jim Tom acts just too noble around them to be any fun. Sports fiction that makes the real thing--as purveyed by TV networks and other news media--seem almost beside the point. Some will find it offensive, particularly in sexual and racial matters, but there's nothing in this sprawling comedy that can't be found in the world. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal:

Jenkins, author of Semi-Tough ( LJ 10/15/72), may have come up with his best sports novel yet. You Gotta Play Hurt is all about big-time sports and big-time sports reporting. Jenkins takes the reader on a fun-filled ride through a year in the life of sportswriter Jim Tom Pinch, a veteran columnist for The Sports Magazine , a national weekly in direct competition with a major rival. His job has him covering virtually every major athletic event of the year. From the Winter Olympics in February to the Cotton Bowl the following January, Pinch is at the scene reporting as only he knows how. This is a thoroughly entertaining, well-written, humorous, and detailed look at big-time sports reporting by an author who really knows his stuff. Highly recommended for all major fiction collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/91 as You Gotta Play Here .--Ed.
- Jeffrey Nicholas, V.A. Medical Ctr. Lib. Svce., Castle Point, N.Y.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0671683322
• ISBN 13: 9780671683320
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352