“I’ve been stood up by better women…I’ve been knocked out by better men.”

I don’t understand the sentiment behind these two quotes from within John’s Grisham‘s 2007 novel, Playing for Pizza, but I don’t think this a book that’s supposed to make a reader think too hard. This story is a far cry from Grisham’s earlier, gripping yarns like A Time to Kill and The Client—and a bit like watching the Lifetime Network, but a male version (if there is such a thing). It’s melodramatic and predictable, yet with enough testosterone to keep it lively.

I enjoyed this book for what it was, a story to amuse, and in that sense it reminded me a little bit of Stephen King‘s The Colorado Kid (2005), which I read recently. The famous author has a deadline, so he whips up something to bide his time. Nothing groundbreaking or earth-shattering. Just a story to get him through the next few months.

Have I played it up enough yet?

This story follows the abrupt end of a third-string quarterback’s career as he sits in a hospital bed having just lost a massive lead in the Super Bowl by throwing three interceptions and the game. Clearly this book is fiction, because his team was the Cleveland Browns, and that team ain’t never making it to the Super Bowl. Talk about melodrama!

With death threats all around, the QB’s agent finds him a low-paying, mostly-off-the-grid job playing starting QB in Parma, Italy. If for nothing else, this book gets a high rating for its portrayal of a lazy Italian town that no foreigner ever cares to visit. Grisham describes its life, culture, and food well enough to make me want to visit…if not move there immediately. Perhaps he wrote this book while sitting as a tourist up in some hotel room or down in some café, feasting on fresh pasta and Parmesan cheese, and perhaps not.

This QB makes it to Parma, arrogant as any jock would be, yet also fully aware that he actually sucks pretty bad at his chosen life-profession. He doesn’t know anything else besides football, so how in the world will he survive?

Once settled, he views this new team of unpaid judges and truck drivers as a way to bring himself back to a point where maybe he can enjoy the game again, at least until he can find something better. Along the way, he has some one-night stands, some closer connections with other random women, and he eventually takes the Parma Panthers all the way to the Italian-NFL Super Bowl (no surprise there).

OK, let me level with you, since we’re on the topic. I read sports books because I enjoy them, but man, they all end up being the same, just with different names and different paths to the Big Game. The only thing more overdone in sports stories than the underdog winning it all is the underdogs losing the championship game by a single point (yet learning some valuable life lessons along the way).

We’ve heard it all before, so what’s the big draw that makes writers and authors want to reproduce the same-old, same-old? This book includes fictional play-by-plays that bore me, because I could get the real thing by watching a real game with moderately higher stakes and players who matter. Why aren’t there any losing seasons surprising us as the big climax to a novel or sports movie? Or how about a team that loses the wildcard game and doesn’t get to go anywhere except back home or to the hotel to watch the playoffs continue without them? Such plots might not be all that exciting, but they sure would be unexpected! And if unexpected, then intriguing. And if intriguing, then quite possibly a pretty good book, right?

I don’t know. Grisham’s got deadlines to meet and books to sell, so I can’t (necessarily) blame him for taking the easy road out on this. But I can blame him for writing a blah-blah real-life drama with a happy ending that I will forget within the hour. That’s his fault, not mine.

I don’t recommend the book unless you’re completely strapped with not other choice, and it’s the only thing available that can keep you awake. But remember: sleeping is good too.

©2021 E.T.

Read More from John Grisham:

• The Rainmaker (1995)
• The Street Lawyer (1998)
• Skipping Christmas (2001)
• A Painted House (2001)
• The Summons (2002)
• The Broker (2005)
• Playing for Pizza (2007)
• Gray Mountain (2015)
• Camino Island (2017)
• The Rooster Bar (2017)

Read More Football Books:

• In the Trenches: The Autobiography by Reggie White (1997)
• The LeRoy Butler Story by LeRoy Butler and James J. Keller (2003)
• Playing for Pizza by John Grisham (2007)
• The Two-Minute Drill to Manhood by John Croyle (2013)
• Driven by Donald Driver (2013)
• Gunslinger by Jeff Pearlman (2016)