DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator’s role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn’t a protagonist. The author’s well-written story—which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny—uses quarterback Joe Theismann’s 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin. M.B. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - John Williams
…wistful and elegantly written…Chris Bachelder plays Jane Goodall to a large group of middle-aged men who assume the role of his chimpanzees. Bachelder observes their rituals with a blend of affection and befuddlement over the course of a weekend, when they have gathered to take part in an activity that feels somehow both wildly imaginative and completely familiar…[The] imaginative freshness [of Bachelder's conceit] allows for sly new questions to be implicitly asked about men's relationship to sports, to violence, to nostalgia and to one another…When Bachelder steps right up to the edge of the sentimental while remaining in full control of his tone, The Throwback Special conjures the rewarding melancholy of Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe novels. But whereas Ford's books are deep dives into a single consciousness, The Throwback Special is about how groups of men interact with one another in a way that nearly subsumes their individuality. What Bachelder is after, and often captures, is akin to the noise he describes at one point emanating from the hotel lobby: "waves of masculine sound, the toneless song of regret and exclamation."
Publishers Weekly
01/11/2016
A real-life football tragedy—the sacking of Washington Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann by New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor in a 1985 game, and the career-ending injury that Theismann sustained as a result—is the foundation of this wryly amusing rumination on manhood and male bonding. Every year for the past 16 years, 22 men have convened at a hotel at an unnamed location off of Interstate 95 to physically re-enact the historic game. What at first seems a slightly screwball form of fantasy football—the men are assigned their roles through a lottery governed by an idiosyncratically detailed set of rules—gradually reveals itself to be a metaphor-rich elaboration of the rules and regulations that shape mature male life. As the men discuss their static marriages and their difficult relationships with their children, the allure of the game—especially the time before the fateful play when “the things that had not happened yet were greater than the things that had happened”—becomes clear. Although Bachelder’s (U.S.!) characters sometimes blend indistinguishably into one another—perhaps not unintentionally—the anxieties and concerns that define them are genuine. One man, considering why people marry, theorizes that “the only thing marriage can really give you is the sense that your life is witnessed by another person.” In one hilarious scene, three men supposedly step out to share a ritual smoke, making it awkwardly impossible for each to reveal to the others that he gave up smoking that year. Filled with subtle humor and incisive insights, Bachelder’s novel will resonate with anyone who has pondered the game of life. (Mar.)
Shelf Awareness (starred review) - Julia Jenkins
"Bachelder reveals the magic of professional sport spectating, the silliness and profundity of traditions, and the tender illogic of friendship. . . . There is absolutely something for everyone (even the sports-averse) in this rollicking, irreverent but sweet human drama."
The New Yorker - Miranda Popkey
"[Bachelder] excels as an analyst of the anxieties that undergird social mores."
Tom Bissell
"A hilarious literary novel about our least hilarious—and least literary—national pastime. No one who reads it will ever be able to think about football, Joe Theismann, Lawrence Taylor, or indeed the male psyche in quite the same way again."
Julie Schumacher
"A comic meditation about marriage, ritual, friendship, parenthood, aging, and unlikely obsessions, The Throwback Special is a funny, insightful, and surprisingly poignant book."
Dallas Morning News - Chris Tucker
"Bachelder’s quirky, defiant style…achieves something fresh and surprising."
Memphis Daily News - Vic Fleming
"[The Throwback Special] is not about football. But about relationships and all that go with them: trust, mistrust, joy, sadness, elation, heartbreak and more."
The Millions - Matt Seidel
"A gem . . . Bachelder’s ‘football’ novel is an eerie, witty work dissecting a modern-day sacrificial ritual."
Los Angeles Times Book Review - Drew Nellins Smith
"Powerful, intelligent, and entertaining. . . . Chris Bachelder works a kind of poignant comedic magic, expertly locating and drawing out central truths about life."
John Williams
"Wistful and elegantly written…The Throwback Special conjures the rewarding melancholy of Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe novels"
Kevin Wilson
"What a brilliant book!"
Minneapolis Star Tribune - Weston Cutter
"The Throwback Special is 2016’s first Great Book. . . . A hilariously sorrowful rendering of American masculinity and a wise, patient examination of American culture."
DECEMBER 2016 - AudioFile
As a group of men bring their own emotional baggage to their football-obsessed reunion, R.C. Bray delivers his usual solid narration. He shifts his tones slightly but enough to put the listener in the motel with the men, revealing their foibles as the story progresses. The narrator’s role in this book is a descriptive one, and Bray is a good guide. His narration becomes extra important because this is a rare instance when there almost isn’t a protagonist. The author’s well-written story—which alternates between serious and laugh-out-loud funny—uses quarterback Joe Theismann’s 1985 injury, a broken leg, as a McGuffin. M.B. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
