Religion & Beliefs - Fiction, Sports - Fiction

Water Boy

Name: Water Boy
Author: Gary Reiswig
ISBN: 9781477483442

by Gary Reiswig

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

Reminiscent of The Last Picture Show and Paris Trout, Water Boy is a powerful and dramatic first novel about a town obsessed with fundamentalist religion and high school football, and of the town's young people, who are nearly destroyed by these overpowering passions. Water Boy is the story of William "Sonny" Schultz, a young man growing up in the 1950s in Cimarron, Oklahoma, who feels destined from birth - chosen by God - to spread the gospel. Prodded by his mother, a religious zealot, Sonny is already performing baptisms at the age of fifteen. But as he grows older, Sonny becomes disillusioned with religion and his mother's fanaticism. He gets a calling of another kind - as water boy for the town's other passion, its high school football team, the Cimarron Dustdevils - just as his best friend, Danny, starts to show promise as the team's quarterback. As their lives become consumed by the narrowness and corruption of the town's obsessions, Danny and Sonny compete for the affections of Dovie Lasher, the steady girlfriend of Brice "Killer" Miller, their long-time nemesis. The town knows this rivalry will eventually explode. They hope Danny can bring them a state football championship before it does. Few novels have explored the kind of faith that claims God speaks personally to believers, nor have many novels shown so clearly what the effects of that faith can be. Water Boy is a gripping portrait of a confined, all-consuming culture, written with a deftness and grace rare for a first novel.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Despite its deceptively simple opening, this first novel about coming of age in 1950s Oklahoma gradually turns into a lurid, albeit fairly compelling, drama of adultery, murder, lust, child abuse and redemption. Narrator William ``Sonny'' Schultz, water boy for his high school football team, finds athletics a means of breaking free from his controlling mother, a religious fanatic who has him performing baptisms by the time he's 10. Sonny and his best friend, quarterback Danny Boone, are both sexually involved with free-spirited Dovie Lasher, teenage wife of the team's star player, sadistic bully Brice ``Killer'' Marden. Longstanding hatreds culminate in Killer's beating and humiliation of Danny, who retaliates by circumcising his tormentor with a knife. The stage is set for a sensational finale, involving the uncertain paternity of Dovie's baby; the revelations here will startle even the most alert readers. Reiswig, himself a high school quarterback and later a pastor, peoples the Oklahoma panhandle with driven characters obsessed by football, sex and religion. (Sept.)