The Legend of Jesse Smoke

by Robert Bausch

Overview

When Skip Granger, the assistant coach for the Washington Redskins, first sees Jesse Smoke, she is on the beach in Belize. And she has just thrown a regulation football a mile.

Granger knows that Smoke's talent is unprecedented for a woman, and nearly unparalleled among men. As Granger observes her throughout a season as quarterback for the Washington Divas of the Independent Women's Football League, he decides to sign her to the Redskins, even as he faces losing his job and credibility. As the first woman on a major NFL team, Jesse Smoke's astounding success places her in the tradition of athletes like Jackie Robinson and Joe Louis. Yet Smoke is quickly faced with her own battles, including the clamors of the press, the violence of her teammates, and the institutional resistance that seeks to keep football in the hands of men.

While a female quarterback in the NFL is a fantasy at the moment, Robert Bausch's genius as a writer makes it a highly engaging reality on the page. Fans of football--and readers who were just waiting for a player worth getting excited about--will relish Jesse Smoke's journey to the big leagues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632863997
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/30/2016
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Robert Bausch is the author of many works of fiction, most recently the novel Far as the Eye Can See. He was born in Georgia and raised around Washington, D.C., and received a B.A., M.A., and M.F.A. from George Mason University. He's been awarded the Fellowship of Southern Writers Hillsdale Award and the John Dos Passos Prize, both for sustained achievement in literature. He lives in Virginia.
Robert Bausch is the author of seven novels and one collection of short stories. They include Almighty Me (optioned for film and eventually adapted as Bruce Almighty), A Hole in the Earth (a New York Times Notable and Washington Post Favourite Book of the Year) and Out of Season (also a Washington Post Favourite). He was born in Georgia and is Professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College. In 2005, he won the Fellowship of Southern Writers' Hillsdale Award for Fiction for his body of work. In 2009, he was awarded the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, also for sustained achievement. He has twice been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Virginia.

www.robertbausch.org

Editorial Reviews

07/25/2016
When the Washington Redskins name Jesse Smoke their starting quarterback, they become the first NFL team to sign a woman. Skip Granger, the team’s longtime assistant coach, narrates this epic tale set in an unspecified future. Granger discovers Jesse on a beach in Belize, throwing a regulation-size football 60 yards across the water with an arm stronger than John Elway or Tom Brady. He recounts how he convinced Jesse to try out for the team despite being under contract with the Washington Divas of the Independent Women’s Football League, and the story takes flight from there. In a likable and occasionally vulnerable voice, Bausch (Far As the Eye Can See) writes as if Granger were adding to the legend of Jesse Smoke, whom he states was already the subject of movies and other books. The author’s vision of the future reveals the present-day ugliness pervading American culture in matters of gender and sexual orientation. Bausch also provides vivid play-by-play game-day descriptions, a narrative tactic that might turn off some readers were the plot not so riveting. Despite an anticlimactic conclusion, the novel is an entertaining sports narrative bolstered by weightier issues for readers to contemplate. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Sheds light on some of football’s prickliest issues: gender inequality and the culture of violence. Robert Bausch's energetic new fantasy novel imagines an expanded NFL in the not-so-distant future, a time when Super Bowls are no longer numbered and fan engagement is stronger than ever. . . an elegant, sometimes brilliant, case that football is a 'beautiful game' that 'allows us to act like heroes, even when what we are engaged in isn’t really heroic.'" - Atlanta Journal-Consitution

"Riveting . . . an entertaining sports narrative bolstered by weightier issues for readers to contemplate." - Publishers Weekly

"Entertaining and courageous . . . The Legend of Jesse Smoke is a football book readers and sports fans will both love, and one that will change the way you see the game." - Bustle

"An entertaining old-school western [in] the reluctant-hero tradition of Charles Portis (True Grit)." —The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice, on FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

"A funny, intelligent, poignant novel that courageously explores the fundamental truths in all our lives." —The New York Times Book Review on THE LIVES OF RILEY CHANCE

"An experience so intimate . . . that it almost blinds you with love." —O, the Oprah Magazine on THE GYPSY MAN

From the Publisher

2016-05-30
This sports-hero entertainment conjures up a woman who can play professional football in a book that isn't overly serious about such social issues.While vacationing on a Belize beach, Washington Redskins offensive coordinator Skip Granger spots Jesse Smoke throwing a football better than most NFL quarterbacks. She's 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs about 180, with a lithe boyish build and freckles that Skip, the book's semismitten narrator, will mention frequently, along with her blue eyes, curly hair, and sweet smile. Impressed but initially only mulling a practical joke at a Redskins tryout camp, Skip gets serious about signing Jesse as a quarterback after seeing her in a women's pro game. Then Jesse also reveals that she can kick field goals with 100 percent accuracy from 50 yards. As she begins to set the team on course for the Super Bowl, the genre demands major obstacles, which here include: transgender rumors; the reappearance of a bad mom; weird nosebleeds; a missing birth certificate; and legal action by the players' union, hoping to oust the lady and preserve the game's integrity (no laughing, please). Bausch may be best known for the novel that became the movie Bruce Almighty. He's also the twin brother of another fiction writer, Richard Bausch. In his eighth novel, Robert frames the narrative as a book written by Skip years after the events. This allows the coach to expose his weakness for sledgehammer foreshadowing at the end of some chapters, for instance: "And thus began the brief, heartbreaking career that became the legend of Jesse Smoke." Bausch clearly is having fun—awkwardly so at times—with what is largely a teen genre aside from exceptions like Malamud's brilliant The Natural. He even tosses in a Shroud of Turin reference (Jesse = Jesus?). There's more football here than a nonfan might enjoy, but Jesse is impressive, the play-by-play is well-done, and the plot twists are less ham-handed than they seem at first. Those unfamiliar with football will be heartened to learn that the game's moves, strategy, and terminology are explained well enough that they'll be able to appreciate just how thoroughly la femme here kicks male derrière.

Kirkus Reviews