Spikes

Bradley S. Klein

[H]is writing is so vivid that even a nongolfer will be swept up for this breathless ride . . . Griffith succeeds in portraying a life spent clawing at the edge of glory.
— New York Times Book Review

Publishers Weekly

...crackles with a lacerating humor from which nothing and no one is spared...

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Golf, as narrator Brian Schwan concedes in this comic novel, is a game with an alluring surface gentility: "the edgy murmur on the practice green; the weirdly purposeful clicks and thumps and grunts from the range." But underneath, there lurks obsession and, in his case, despair. First novelist Griffith's writing crackles with a lacerating humor from which nothing and no one is spared. Brian, 25, has gone from being his dad's little prodigy player to a second-tier professional, mired in the Snapper/Gold Club Tour. His "swan song" comes during the Ile de Paris tournament, held near Charleston, S.C. His long-suffering born-again wife, Rosa, has been making impatient sounds about Brian's selfishness: for four years she has put up with being a golf widow, but now she wants a child. She also wants her husband to confront reality and become an accountant. Brian is sure that his childhood friend and current golfing buddy, Hatch, is supplying Rosa with ammunition by back-channeling information to her about Brian's losses. Even his father has lost faith. The book starts with Brian shooting seven over par on the same day that "Bird" Soulsby, the mysterious South African golfer with whom he is paired, shoots an amazing 11 under par. On his way to his car, Brian is waylaid by Ellen McCovery, a lovely news reporter for a Charleston TV station. She mistakes him for Bird; he leaps at the chance to exchange places with a winner and maybe engage in an adulterous tryst. But Brian doesn't know yet what a strange character he is trying to impersonate. Griffith concocts a truly Nabokovian entertainment, which probes the twinned nature of winners and losers, the lore of the game and the eccentric subculture it spawns--though one needn't have the slightest interest in golf to be won over. (Feb.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Brian Schwan, a champion golfer in college, now plays so badly that he can't even meet expenses for third-rate tournaments, and his wife is no longer willing to support his quest. In his last-chance tournament, he blows the first round, while his partner, Bird, scores an unbelievable 59. When Brian pretends to be Bird in a TV interview, Bird goes along, assuming Brian's identity as the tournament continues, which liberates Brian to play golf brilliantly, as if it were a game again. The switch also frees him to think about his wife; his dad, who worked so hard to teach him the game; and what he wants for himself. Readers should think of Griffith's first novel as a rite-of-passage story about a self-destructive 26-year-old boy. Women may find Brian irritating and incomprehensible, but this reviewer thinks male readers and golfers will understand this story about how hard a dream dies.--Marylaine Block, Librarian Without Walls, Davenport, IA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Comic, allegorical first novel in which a bumbling contender learns that even if golf is a poor substitute for life, life has its moments. After four years of progressively worsening scores, Brian Schwan realizes that his dream of being a professional golfer has sunk into the sand trap of no return. Finishing shamefully behind his rival, the dashing South African autodidactic ornithologist Jim"Bird" Soulsby, Schwan retires to a seedy motel room, where he doesn't even succeed in drinking himself into oblivion. Instead, he lets fly some rants about how he has failed everyone: Dad, who lived his dreams of golfing glory through his son; Mom, who didn't complain when Brian ducked an art history major at college to try his luck on the pro circuit; and Rosa, Brian's adoring, born-again wife, who has tirelessly supported him but now wants to have a child. When he runs into a pretty TV newswoman who wants to interview Bird Soulsby, Schwan gives into"bad craziness" and pretends to be his rival, then arranges a liaison with the reporter that promises to put him in her bed. But who should invade the post-game flirtation at a picturesque Charleston, South Carolina, tavern but Soulsby himself . . . pretending to be Schwan. While Schwan fumbles and mopes, Soulsby dazzles the reporter with his wit and erudition, leaving Schwan to ponder if, by pretending to be him and walking off with his date, Soulsby might be demonstrating that pretension, like faith, can loosen up a stiff swing. By chance, Soulsby and Schwan are again paired off the next day, with Schwan's father watching on the sidelines, for a game in which Schwan discovers why golf attracts so many people who believe in miracles. A few toomanyteeth-gnashing flashbacks, but on the whole a funny, winning portrait of the artist as a frustrated, helpless, but not completely hopeless young duffer.