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Overview
A Year in Provence . . . in sweats
Some people would consider writing for Sports Illustrated a dream job. Others fantasize about living idyllically in the South of France. S. L. Price got to do both. Assigned by Sports Illustrated to cover sports in Europe, Price relocated his family to a small hamlet in Provence, and then set out to uncover the soul of world athletic competition.
In an attempt to comprehend the planet's most intense and bloody sports, he immersed himself in the cricket rivalry between India and Pakistan. He spent time with Lance Armstrong as the cyclist fended off rumors of performance-enhancing drugs. He argued politics with Olympic athletes in Athens, covered Austria's beer-drenched version of the Super Bowl, and caught basketball fever in Belgrade—as he, his wife, and children tried to adjust to life in a Europe convulsed by terrorism, anti-Americanism, and George Bush's war in Iraq.
Far Afield is an extraordinary memoir of growth, family, and games people play worldwide.
Editorials
New York Times Book Review
Praise for FAR AFIELD: “The seasoned reporter behind this memoir is a master of the new journalism developed by Hunter Thompson, Gay Talese and Price’s personal paragon, Pete Hamill. Whenever he writes about sports--or about the craft of writing--he hits it over the fence.”Chicago Tribune
"A masterpiece."Boston Globe
"Price blends an unerring eye for detail and nuance with fresh, crackling prose that gives these insights a startling authenticity."Esquire
"One of the year’s five best reads."Esquire
“One of the year’s five best reads.”Chicago Tribune
“A masterpiece.”Boston Globe
“Price blends an unerring eye for detail and nuance with fresh, crackling prose that gives these insights a startling authenticity.”Gordon Marino
The sports reportage in this gracefully written book is strong enough to make the sometimes-dated events seem timeless. Writers who aim to fix images of athletes and games in our collective memory need to find fresh angles, just like great photographers. Price is a virtuoso at locating unconventional entries into common topics…The seasoned reporter behind this memoir is a master of the new journalism developed by Hunter Thompson, Gay Talese and Price's personal paragon, Pete Hamill. Adherents of this approach drop all pretense to objectivity and are loath to dismiss any detail as irrelevant. For example, in his reckoning of the 2004 Summer Olympics, Price spends paragraphs on the travails of driving in Athens; when he's in Pakistan, taking in a historic series of cricket matches with India, he prattles on about bedbugs and a broken air-conditioner. And yet it all works to capture the tension of the event and to create a coherent and absorbing composition.—The New York Times
Publishers Weekly
Price, a senior writer at Sports Illustratedfor 13 years and author of Pitching Around Fidel: A Journey into the Heart of Cuban Sports, finds his past in the most unfamiliar places when he moves to the south of France to report on European sports for a year. Inside his coverage of every new competition in every new city lurks Price's profoundly American self-consciousness. Lambasted at every turn for Bush's war on terror, Price's American identity is formed defensively as he spars with European opponents over the war, politics and history. Luckily, Price couldn't be further removed from the ugly American stereotype. He's perceptive, open-minded and intelligent, transcribing Europe with the confident, lofty lyricism of an American sportswriter who has found his voice. His metaphors hit the mark, whether summing up the doping accusations against Lance Armstrong, eating eggs with Ted Williams, experiencing the fanaticism of the India-Pakistan cricket rivalry, exploring Europe's obsession with soccer or sitting down with prospective NBA centers from the former Eastern bloc. Price is aware that the biggest action has a way of following him wherever he goes. Indeed, his memoir is a stroll through a minefield of recent European headlines-the train bombings in Madrid, the Le Pen vote scare in France and the 2004 Athens Olympics. The personal becomes political and the political gets personal in this travel memoir, as national identities and sports collide. (Sept.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business InformationLibrary Journal
More travelog than sports, this account of following sports worldwide is a social commentary of the first order. On assignment from Sports Illustrated, award-winning sports writer Price (Pitching Around Fidel) moved his family to the south of France in 2004. For the next year, he followed sports of all types: from cricket matches to the Tour de France, from the Athens Olympics to Paris Open tennis. At the height of the Iraq war, Price reported inside the fields of play, ever suspect of being the ugly American but deftly defying the label with grace and wit. Here is the love-hate relationship with the French and their disgust with Bush and most things American-yet Price delivers a fresh approach, filled with the often simple joys of competition and the complexity of athletes like Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong. A chapter on the India-Pakistan cricket matches is chilling, reminding us of the fragility between nation states. Highly recommended for public and academic libraries.
—Boyd Childress