Bleachers

Neely Crenshaw was the finest quarterback the Messina Spartans ever produced, a high school all-American who played for one of the most feared football programs around. Fifteen years later he is back in his hometown, and not for a celebration. Coach Eddie Rake, the man who built the Spartans into a dynasty, has died, and Neely has come to bury him.

On the night before the funeral, Rake's former players gather in the stadium bleachers and wait for the field lights to go dark, the signal that their coach is gone. As the hours pass, the men go back over the old games and the glory that came with them. They also argue over a question that has followed them since their playing days: did they love Eddie Rake, or did they hate him?

For Neely, the question cuts deepest. His career did not turn out the way a golden-armed teenager might have expected, and he has carried the weight of that ever since. Before he can move forward with his life, he has to find a way to forgive the coach who shaped him, and to forgive himself as well.

This is a quieter book than most of John Grisham's legal thrillers. It is a nostalgic story about a small Southern football town, about what we owe the people who made us, and about how hard it can be to leave our best days behind.