Overtime A Basketball Parable Larry Ellis 9781533452825 Books
Download As PDF : Overtime A Basketball Parable Larry Ellis 9781533452825 Books
It's unlike anything you've read before. Carl Campbell lived for one thing basketball. Regrets? Plenty. But only after he is dead. In the latest novel by Larry Ellis, Overtime A Basketball Parable, Coach Carl Campbell - post mortem - sits on a bench behind the goal of a run-down, outdoor basketball court and reflects on his life as he watches young versions of his former players shoot hoops. It is a kind of purgatory that forces Campbell to reevaluate the decisions he made and the opportunities he missed, hoping to find a sliver of redemption. In Overtime, there are basketball scenes, but it's not a sports book. There is unrequited love, but it's not a romance. And of course there is the spirit? ghost? of Carl Campbell, but it's not a paranormal mystery. It's just a good story with unusual characters that will stay with you long after you've finished the book.
Overtime A Basketball Parable Larry Ellis 9781533452825 Books
If you played or spent much time around high school athletics, you will find this book to be a thoughtful and satisfying meditation in a setting as familiar as that old pair of Chuck Taylors you still miss. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ellis' book is a first-person muse by a former high school basketball coach who is forced to examine his life in order to escape a purgatory of watching his failures in the form of former students and players throwing up shot after shot on a broken-down asphalt basketball court. The story unfolds quite ably through episodes or vignettes that play out in the coach's memories.The story is good enough, but Ellis' true gift lies in his ability to understand and explain his characters' motives and also to capture the emotional and sensory details of the public high school where his drama plays out. His treatment of human motivation and pride is excellent. He understands the social battlefield of high school and incorporates it into the background of the story almost as a separate character without resorting to melodrama. This is not a book about high school for high school students. It is a mature look at life in retrospect. As an adult who is quickly approaching 25 years separation from high school I now know that it was both more important and less important than I thought while I was there. Ellis captures that contradiction well.
Ellis is still developing as a writer, and the book is not perfect. Nevertheless, Overtime is a good book. In parts it is wonderful. It is thoughtful and contemplative. Its exploration of universal themes such as grace and redemption, forgiveness and regret is worthwhile. I recommend it.
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Tags : Overtime: A Basketball Parable [Larry Ellis] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. It's unlike anything you've read before. Carl Campbell lived for one thing: basketball. Regrets? Plenty. But only after he is dead. In the latest novel by Larry Ellis,Larry Ellis,Overtime: A Basketball Parable,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1533452822,Literary,FICTION Literary,Fiction
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Overtime A Basketball Parable Larry Ellis 9781533452825 Books Reviews
Larry Ellis has written a winner here in a clever style with an equally ingenious voice. You don't have to like Basketball to fall in love with this book. While the main character Coach Carl reviews his life, so do we as the reader. It is inevitable that as you turn the pages of this book, you will also turn back the pages of your own life and take stock of your actions. You may like me, revisit those folks in your life who have been harmed by thoughtless words or deeds, or give thanks that there is still time to make amends ...we are in Overtime and as you know, that's a time when Anything can happen ...Frankie Picasso, founder-The Good Radio network, author of Midlife Mojo, &Midlife Mojo- How to Get Through the Midlife Crisis and Emerge as Your True Self No bull Allowed
Very entertaining book. Inside look at high school basketball and how decisions made can impact players but also the coach and regrets because of those actions.
Overtime A Basketball Parable is a personal favorite. Growing up in a similar small town in West Virginia I could relate to both the situations and personal encounters that Carl witnessed and experienced. High School sports and the experiences of High School are very important to most of us, and the way Larry Ellis captured the drama, the situations, the pain, and the hurt were eerily similar to many students, athletes, coaches, and teachers.
We all make mistakes and have failures, some are very hard to overcome. But, we when have our chance to overcome or to succeed and are able to see that success, the feeling is very rewarding. I was hoping Carl would see more success. Sometimes contentment is the way we go through life. Most of us root for the underdog. A great read.
This is a poignant book. At first it seems like "Field of Dreams--Basketball." Once you push past the initial parallels, the depth of this book comes through. Purgatory and accounting/atoning for past sins and mistakes (even well intentioned ones) gives this book a somber and reflective tone. The characters have depth and frailty that the author painstakingly constructs--there are only sinners here, no saints. There is also a mystery about the setting that the author does well to leave mysterious. This is not the book for a person looking for easy answers and a fairytale resolution. This book was clearly developed and written with great thought and feeling. A good book to read for the contemplative reader.
Overtime A Basketball Parable is engrossing to read and rewarding to ponder.
On the surface this is a simple story about a high school basketball coach, all about winning and taking his team to the state tournament and setting him on a career path to coaching big-time college ball. But it is truly a parable, as the title says. A simple story that carries deeper and multiple meanings.
Coach is sitting on a bench beside a neighborhood basketball court, off kilter, the baskets crooked, the asphalt cracked. The premise, which you learn on page one Coach is dead. Unable to move from his bench, in a purgatorial setting, every night at dusk he must watch two of his former players—Sparks, who had a brilliant long shot just before the 3-point rule, and Murphy, talented but totally egotistical — as Murphy feeds Sparks the ball and Sparks misses every shot.
The story begins when young Danny Kelso comes to the court before the high school tryouts where Coach will unfairly cut him, putting his own ambitions before his players’. Kelso can see him and it appears that the coach has the chance to right the old wrong and coach Kelso onto the team. But that would be an obvious plot and this book is not obvious.
As the coach remembers his career, players, games, women, he tries to understand why he must watch Sparks and Murphy, why Kelso is there, and his stories lead him to his own failings and failures, the losses of games and people, and the choices he made driven by ambition and self-righteous assurance.
Overtime is set in a quasi-fictional West Virginia, some places actual – Charleston and Morgantown – and others not – Walhonde High School where he coaches or the teams they play. Pistol Pete Maravich, a legendary player in the 1970s, has a small but starring role.
Reading a parable, one might fear that meanings will be forced or conclusions required. I put off reading the last 20 pages for fear it would end that way. Instead, the last scene is one of true delight and laugh out loud joy.
If you played or spent much time around high school athletics, you will find this book to be a thoughtful and satisfying meditation in a setting as familiar as that old pair of Chuck Taylors you still miss. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Ellis' book is a first-person muse by a former high school basketball coach who is forced to examine his life in order to escape a purgatory of watching his failures in the form of former students and players throwing up shot after shot on a broken-down asphalt basketball court. The story unfolds quite ably through episodes or vignettes that play out in the coach's memories.
The story is good enough, but Ellis' true gift lies in his ability to understand and explain his characters' motives and also to capture the emotional and sensory details of the public high school where his drama plays out. His treatment of human motivation and pride is excellent. He understands the social battlefield of high school and incorporates it into the background of the story almost as a separate character without resorting to melodrama. This is not a book about high school for high school students. It is a mature look at life in retrospect. As an adult who is quickly approaching 25 years separation from high school I now know that it was both more important and less important than I thought while I was there. Ellis captures that contradiction well.
Ellis is still developing as a writer, and the book is not perfect. Nevertheless, Overtime is a good book. In parts it is wonderful. It is thoughtful and contemplative. Its exploration of universal themes such as grace and redemption, forgiveness and regret is worthwhile. I recommend it.
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