Babb takes us to a place most of us would never go, telling us a story we’d never know. This book is so important.” — PETER KING, NBC Sports
"A penetrating, wide-screen story of what it means to mentor under the toughest of circumstances." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This spectacular book carefully fuses voice and tone to transport the reader into a world few can imagine and transforms the tales of disparate individuals into a narrative that is both touching and tragic.” — DeMAURICE SMITH, executive director, NFL Players Association
“ Masterful . . . an equal parts heartbreaking and life-affirming look at a city, a school, and a football team whose players and coaches spend as much time fighting for survival as they do grid triumph.” — JEFF PEARLMAN, New York Times bestselling author of Three-Ring Circus
"This is the story the country needs to read—raw, expertly told, stripped of political agendas and preconceived notions. This is not a story about football, but about what football can mean." — MICHAEL ROSENBERG, senior writer, Sports Illustrated
"A moving and evocative portrait of football and life" — Publishers Weekly
"I've always thought the best books are those that combine great reporting and great writing. That's exactly what Kent Babb's Across The River does. It combines deeply detailed inside reporting with a wonderfully told story." — JONATHAN FEINSTEIN, New York Times Bestselling author of A Good Walk Spoiled
“At the Karr High School introduced to us by Kent Babb there is the expression, ‘Give Em The Real.' This book is ‘the real.' It’s as real as birth and death and all the heartache in between. Through Babb’s eyes, the story of Karr football is so much more than a sports book. This is the other America that too many people don’t know - or care to know – exists.” — DAVE ZIRIN, sports editor, The Nation
"a literary masterpiece. Lyrically written and deeply reported, Across the River reads like a gripping, can’t-put-it-down novel.” — LARS ANDERSON, New York Times bestselling author of The Mannings and Chasing the Bear
“This is an essential American read and an intimate look into the soul of New Orleans.” — WRIGHT THOMPSON, ESPN senior writer and author of Pappyland
“There is no better storyteller in the country than Kent Babb. Period. I’ve never learned more about the fabric of one of America’s greatest cities than I did in this book.” — IAN RAPOPORT, NFL Network Insider
“In Across the River Kent Babb keeps it real as he deftly and eloquently negotiates the sidewalks, the sidelines, and the streets of New Orleans.” — GLENN STOUT, editor, The Year’s Best Sports Writing
This is an essential American read and an intimate look into the soul of New Orleans.
This spectacular book carefully fuses voice and tone to transport the reader into a world few can imagine and transforms the tales of disparate individuals into a narrative that is both touching and tragic.
At the Karr High School introduced to us by Kent Babb there is the expression, ‘Give Em The Real.' This book is ‘the real.' It’s as real as birth and death and all the heartache in between. Through Babb’s eyes, the story of Karr football is so much more than a sports book. This is the other America that too many people don’t know - or care to know – exists.
"a literary masterpiece. Lyrically written and deeply reported, Across the River reads like a gripping, can’t-put-it-down novel.
"I've always thought the best books are those that combine great reporting and great writing. That's exactly what Kent Babb's Across The River does. It combines deeply detailed inside reporting with a wonderfully told story."
Masterful . . . an equal parts heartbreaking and life-affirming look at a city, a school, and a football team whose players and coaches spend as much time fighting for survival as they do grid triumph.
Babb takes us to a place most of us would never go, telling us a story we’d never know. This book is so important.
"This is the story the country needs to read—raw, expertly told, stripped of political agendas and preconceived notions. This is not a story about football, but about what football can mean."
There is no better storyteller in the country than Kent Babb. Period. I’ve never learned more about the fabric of one of America’s greatest cities than I did in this book.
In Across the River Kent Babb keeps it real as he deftly and eloquently negotiates the sidewalks, the sidelines, and the streets of New Orleans.
The author spends time with a high school football coach and his team in New Orleans, and the result is more of a socioeconomic portrait than a book on football. It’s an excellent immersive piece of reporting whose seriousness comes across in every one of narrator Ryan Vincent Anderson’s words. The plights of players with often-challenging home lives demand a calm and serious tone, and Anderson delivers. Coach Brown’s words to his team—raw, disciplinary, harsh at times—come across with the commanding authority he carries, thanks to Anderson’s narration. Note: The N-word is used often, and bleeped, which doesn’t work because it forces brief interruptions, and you can still hear the word. But it doesn’t mar the narration or the importance of this comprehensive, and enlightening, story. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
The author spends time with a high school football coach and his team in New Orleans, and the result is more of a socioeconomic portrait than a book on football. It’s an excellent immersive piece of reporting whose seriousness comes across in every one of narrator Ryan Vincent Anderson’s words. The plights of players with often-challenging home lives demand a calm and serious tone, and Anderson delivers. Coach Brown’s words to his team—raw, disciplinary, harsh at times—come across with the commanding authority he carries, thanks to Anderson’s narration. Note: The N-word is used often, and bleeped, which doesn’t work because it forces brief interruptions, and you can still hear the word. But it doesn’t mar the narration or the importance of this comprehensive, and enlightening, story. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine
★ 2021-06-19
A sociologically oriented look at a high school football season in a poor section of New Orleans.
Washington Post reporter Babb isn’t interested in delivering a play-by-play analysis of Edna Karr High School’s 2019 season. More significantly, he offers well-rounded portraits of the personalities involved with the team: the coaches, players, fans, and the city as a whole. The primary character is head coach Brice Brown, who displays a sharp football mind and exudes grace and generosity, creatively treating his players as distinct individuals who respond to varying treatment. If needed, he will provide for his players: clothes, shelter, food, transportation, life advice, etc. He also conducts uncomfortable discussions, creating “challenging, often uncomfortable, social scenarios that fluster kids by design. These are meant as psychological stress tests.” Most players live in poverty-riddled, dangerous neighborhoods, so Brown is constantly looking out for their well-being. Babb explains the psychogeography of New Orleans and especially how Hurricane Katerina impacted the students’ sense of place and their insecurities. He also investigates the burgeoning gentrification of the city, an ongoing process with dire consequences. “Displaced residents aren’t just physically uprooted from their homes, neighborhood, and comfort zones,” writes the author. “They often carry harsh emotional burdens that, in particular for children, can lead to higher risk of anxiety and depression.” At the same time, Babb wrestles with an existential element that attends the sport of football in most marginalized communities: the physical dangers of the game versus the opportunity to rise out of poverty—not just via college scholarships or (rarely) being drafted in the NFL, but by providing a transformative atmosphere that fosters independence, self-worth, and discipline. The author also probes the New Orleans police department through the lens of investigations into the shootings of players and the impact that violence has on all members of the community.
A penetrating, wide-screen story of what it means to mentor under the toughest of circumstances.
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