All the Colors Came Out: A Father, a Daughter, and a Lifetime of Lessons

by Kate Fagan

Overview

This "love story for the ages" from a # 1 New York Times bestselling author comes an unforgettable story about basketball and the enduring bonds between a father and daughter that "will heal relationships and hearts" (Glennon Doyle).
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Kate Fagan and her father forged their relationship on the basketball court, bonded by sweaty high fives and a dedication to the New York Knicks. But as Kate got older, her love of the sport and her closeness with her father grew complicated. The formerly inseparable pair drifted apart. The lessons that her father instilled in her about the game, and all her memories of sharing the court with him over the years, were a distant memory.

When Chris Fagan was diagnosed with ALS, Kate decided that something had to change. Leaving a high-profile job at ESPN to be closer to her mother and father and take part in his care, Kate Fagan spent the last year of her father’s life determined to return to him the kind of joy they once shared on the court. All the Colors Came Out is Kate Fagan’s completely original reflection on the very specific bond that one father and daughter shared, forged in the love of a sport which over time came to mean so much more.

Studded with unforgettable scenes of humor, pain and hope, Kate Fagan has written a book that plumbs the mysteries of the unique gifts fathers gives daughters, ones that resonate across time and circumstance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316706919
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Kate Fagan is an Emmy award-winning journalist and the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Made Maddy Run, which was longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award. She currently works for Meadowlark Media and writes for Sports Illustrated, and previously spent seven years as a columnist and feature writer for espnW, ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine. She lives in Charleston, South Carolina with her wife, Kathryn Budig, and their two dogs.

Table of Contents

Foreword Kathy Fagan xi

Prologue: Red Suede Pumas 3

Part I

1 Us 11

2 Broken Arm(s) 16

3 Girl Dad 24

Lesson #1 Never Let Anyone Win 27

4 Malibu Grill 29

5 March Madness 31

6 Too Much Alike 34

7 The Phone Call 42

8 Fuck You, ALS 49

Lesson #2 Make Your Last Dribble the Hardest 52

9 Feel My Muscle (Part I) 54

10 Out of Love 56

Lesson #3 Always Find the Center Mark 63

Part II

11 Kathryn (Part I: Winter 2018) 67

12 Wet Leaves (September 2018) 72

13 Kathryn (Part II: Winter 2019) 79

14 The Way We Sleep 84

15 I Hate Myself 88

Lesson #4 Occasionally Bank in a Free Throw 95

16 Back Porch 98

Lesson #5 Life's Most Important Metric 102

17 Fort Moultrie 104

Lesson #6 Keep Your Sneakers in the Trunk 109

18 Not a Buddha 111

Part III

19 Good People, Bad Times 119

Lesson #7 Ritual and Routine 124

20 Morphine 127

21 No Surrender 130

22 The Performance 136

23 Be With My People 140

24 The Unpaid Trillions 148

25 Guinness 151

Lesson #8 Let Me Be Your Flunky 155

26 KB Is Over There 157

27 Gezellig 162

28 High-Wire Act 168

29 The Many Goodbyes 175

Overtime: Feel My Muscle (Part II) 183

Acknowledgments 187

Editorial Reviews

2021-03-03
A loving daughter recounts her father’s last illness.

Journalist, sports reporter, and memoirist Fagan, currently a feature writer for Sports Illustrated, pays homage to her beloved father, who died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 2019. A basketball star at Colgate, Chris Fagan played professionally throughout Europe and shared his love of the sport with his eldest daughter, honing her natural talent. “I excelled in high school,” writes the author, "accepted a scholarship to play at the University of Colorado, and played three years professionally. Basketball, and sports, became the beating heart of my life.” But her commitment waned in college, which, she knew, disappointed her father. She was afraid her sexuality would also disappoint him. She came out as gay to her mother but couldn’t face telling Chris. “Back then, when I played women’s college basketball,” she reflects, “I thought being gay was a failing.” He did not, though, and warmly welcomed Kate’s love—and soon to be wife—into the family. His diagnosis jarred Kate into reassessing her life, career choices, and also “the glass walls I’d built between me and the people I loved the most.” Working at ESPN and living with her wife in Charleston, South Carolina, she felt enormous guilt at being far from her father when he most needed her. In December 2018, she left ESPN and for the next year traveled weekly to her family in upstate New York. In grueling detail, the author portrays the inexorable progress of her father’s illness, the toll it took on his family, and his persistent denial of reality. “I thought he should be like Buddha,” writes the author, “or Morrie Schwartz from Tuesdays With Morrie, or any number of stoic philosophers who embrace their final days with a pure heart, conviction in the world’s oneness flowing from their lips. Yet, she admits, she discovered in the mysteries of his final moments “a steadfast belief in a higher power.”

A warmly appreciative memoir of sports and family.

Kirkus Reviews

"I really related personally to this book, and I feel that for a lot of women who grew up playing sports and ended up being gay, it [reflects] this special relationship that you have with your dad, where sport becomes an important point of connection."—Megan Rapinoe, Vogue

“Fagan has done a remarkable service to her father by telling the story of his life with such generosity and to her fellow caregivers by candidly describing the circumstances under which that life came to an end.” —The Washington Post

“A heartfelt meditation on what matters.” —The Boston Globe summer reading feature

“The author’s singular talent for relating her internal struggles and growth shines in this exquisite tribute to her father and family, and to the game of basketball.”—Library Journal (starred review)

"While the world screams for our attention, Kate Fagan arrives, quietly hands us All The Colors Came Out, and we remember what matters. Fagan is an artist, so I knew this book would be brilliant. What I didn’t expect was her gut wrenching and soul cleansing honesty about the complications and confusions of familial love. I finished feeling understood, less alone, and committed to being braver with my own father. This book will help heal relationships and hearts. All the Colors Came Out is a love story for the ages."
 —Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 Bestseller Untamed and the founder of Together Rising

“All the Colors Came Out is one of those books that will make you cry on one page and feel like you’ve learned something to improve your life on the next.”—Joyce Bassett, Albany Times Union

“This book. I read it straight through, barely moving until the last word on the last page. Here is a deeply affecting story about a father and daughter, human failings and human forgiveness, and finding an unflinching heart when you need it most. It is written with such love and honesty you won’t soon forget it.” —Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Book of Longings

“This is a book about basketball, yes, and fandom and home, and about fathers and daughters, to be sure—about all parents and children, really—but most of all it is a story about the fierce and redemptive power of love.”—Wright Thompson, author of Pappyland

"Once again, in a story of pain and loss, Kate Fagan manages to find beauty and humanity and write a book that teaches us a great deal about our own lives." —Ryan Holiday, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Daily Stoic

"Like many women in my field, I inherited my love for sports from my dad, and the parallels between our bond and the one Fagan recounts here jumped off the page. But All the Colors Came Out isn't just about fathers and daughters—it's about the ways in which human connection shapes identity, and how those ties can be quietly frayed, and then, in the face of devastating adversity, repaired. It's a story of heartbreak and healing, and one that will sit with me for a long time."
 
 —Mina Kimes, Senior Writer at ESPN and co-host of NFL Live

From the Publisher

Like some memoirs, this audiobook is a cathartic one for the author, a sports journalist whose father, Chris, contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The work serves the dual role of peeling back the layers of their relationship while laying out what a person and their loved ones go through in dealing with the debilitating fatal illness. It would be difficult to imagine this audiobook narrated by anyone other than the author, whose genuine emotion comes through in the stories she tells about her father. As she describes moments with her dad, a former pro basketball player, the listener can hear how empathetic she is and how proud her father was of her. Their emotional journey will leave listeners with a vivid picture of a relationship worth hearing about. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile

Like some memoirs, this audiobook is a cathartic one for the author, a sports journalist whose father, Chris, contracted amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The work serves the dual role of peeling back the layers of their relationship while laying out what a person and their loved ones go through in dealing with the debilitating fatal illness. It would be difficult to imagine this audiobook narrated by anyone other than the author, whose genuine emotion comes through in the stories she tells about her father. As she describes moments with her dad, a former pro basketball player, the listener can hear how empathetic she is and how proud her father was of her. Their emotional journey will leave listeners with a vivid picture of a relationship worth hearing about. M.B. © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine

JUNE 2021 - AudioFile