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Recherche en cours... Englewood | Audiobooks | B HIAASEN CD | Recherche en cours... Inconnu |
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A New York Times-bestselling author chronicles his shaky return to the bedeviling pastime of golf after almost four decades, in a riotous audiobook that culminates with a savage 45-hole tournament. Unabridged. 4 CDs.
Critiques (3)
Critique du Publishers Weekly
Everybody knows how funny Hiaasen can be in print, but unfortunately something not so funny happens when he reads his own book about starting up again as a golfer after dropping the sport 32 years ago. Sentences that get a chuckle on the page sound pretentious or flat. Even though Hiaasen is reading his own material, his delivery is not relaxed and sounds stilted and actorish. There's some touching stuff as Hiaasen talks about his childhood memories of playing golf with his father, who died early, and real anger as he talks about how overdevelopment and crooked golf junkets are doing serious damage to his beloved Florida. But your money may be better spent buying several of the author's wacky mysteries--or a lesson from a golf pro. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Mar. 3). (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved.
Critique du New York Review of Books
IT takes a certain kind of person to have fun playing golf. Carl Hiaasen is not that kind of person. The author of antic novels ("Strip Tease," "Skinny Dip," "Nature Girl"), Hiaasen writes books that are fun to read, and "The Downhill Lie" is no exception. But while the escapades of his fictional characters - a ragtag cast of slackers, drifters, drug runners, litter-bugs, lobbyists, poachers and other indigenous forms of Florida lowlife - strike most readers as impossibly exotic, Hiaasen's hilarious misadventures on the golf course are all too familiar to anyone who has ever flailed at the ball in futile attempts to conquer a sport that mercilessly strips us of our dignity. Like many children looking to spend time with their fathers, Hiaasen took up the game at an early age, "too young," he writes, "to realize that my disposition was ill suited to a recreation that requires infinite patience and eternal optimism." In 1973, soon after his best round (an 88), he quit. Now, after "a much-needed layoff of 32 years," he's back at it, and his slice is intact. He keeps a journal, recording his progress or the lack of it, remarking on new courses hemmed in by condos, familiarizing himself with rescue clubs and other equipment invented during his absence. A pro sizes up his swing and tells him his driver is too stiff. "That's not what his wife says," his wiseacre friend replies. A new driver buys him extra distance off the tee, sending his slice careening even farther from the fairway. It quickly becomes apparent that Hiaasen's psychological makeup is no better suited to golf now that he's in his 50s. For one thing, he's a knee-jerk perfectionist whose inner game rapidly lapses into a litany of self-reproach. Every flubbed shot is the outward sign of a flawed character. To make matters worse, Hiaasen, like most writers, is a solitary animal, and golf is a social sport. When he makes eagle - his first - there are no witnesses, thanks to his penchant for playing alone. Consulting books by the experts, Hiaasen comes across this tall order from Bob Rotella, the sports psychologist: "On the first tee, a golfer must expect only two things of himself: to have fun, and to focus his mind properly on every shot." A friend agrees to join him in a tournament on one condition: "Promise me you'll have fun." Meanwhile, his wife and son sign up for lessons and ... they think it's fun! Hiaasen writes as if he were the only golfer out there who isn't having a good time. Is golf fun? I wouldn't know. In my experience, it's a lot like writing - exhilarating when you get it right, and the rest of the time it's torture. While the journal format doesn't allow Hiaasen much occasion to exercise his flawless ear for dialogue, it does give us a chance to hear the voice in his own head. His preoccupations emerge as themes here: a midlife awareness of the physical decay that aging brings, a stubborn resolve to prove himself the exception, memories of his father, hope in his son. After the big tournament, he calls his mother to fill her in on his disappointing performance. So he didn't have fun? she asks. "Again with the fun." JOHN MONTAGUE might have been invented by Hiaasen, had he not invented himself. Born LaVerne Moore in Syracuse in 1903, Montague lived most of his life in Hollywood, where he acquired a reputation for trick golf shots and feats of strength. For a few years he was reportedly capable of distance and accuracy that even today would border on the freakish: drives that consistently traveled more than 300 yards (rare at the time), scores in the low 60s. According to Leigh Montville in "The Mysterious Montague," his legend was born when he challenged Bing Crosby, a good golfer by all accounts, to a contest in which Crosby would play with his clubs and Montague with a shovel, a fungo bat and a rake. Montague won, with a birdie to beat Crosby's par. "This was his masterpiece. This was his 'Mona Lisa,'" exults Montville, who evinces no natural immunity to the hyperbole that strikes so many sportswriters. With three accomplices, wielding a blackjack and a pistol, LaVerne Moore robbed a restaurant in upstate New York in 1930. He escaped and made his way west to Hollywood, where everyone was starting over. Names were changed, no questions asked. At the Lakeside Golf Club, his fellow members included many of the movies' biggest stars. "John Montague fit perfectly into this scene," Montville writes, "with its equal parts alcohol, golf, testosterone and madcap bravado." Though Montague declined invitations to compete professionally, picked up his ball when he was about to break a course record and refused to be photographed, his flashy brand of golf soon brought him notoriety nonetheless, calling him to the attention of detectives back east. In 1937, he was arrested and, despite appeals on his behalf by Crosby, Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hawks and other famous friends, extradited to New York, where he stood trial. Montville ratchets the suspense until it seems that Montague is on the verge of death row instead of a prison sentence. The trial, at a distance of some 70 years, is depicted in details so extravagant that they call attention to themselves, prompting the reader to wonder how Montville knows that the waitress who served Montague breakfast was cross-eyed. In the end, celebrity and haberdashery prevail, and the dapper Montague is acquitted. His alibi: he was hitting balls at a driving range on the night in question, and a witness for the defense attests to giving him a ride home. Case closed, even though the evidence clearly stated that his golf clubs, along with his Gladstone bag, had been found in one of the getaway cars. Montague is freed and finally in a position to take on the greatest golfers of his era. He qualifies for the 1940 U.S. Open, then shoots an 82 on the second day and misses the cut. He is married now. He puts on weight. He drinks more. In 1972, he dies. A criminal protagonist for whom golf becomes the means to an ambiguous redemption, an uneventful denouement that spans the second half of a lifetime unlike Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Dale Earnhardt, Montville's previous subjects, Montague seems an inauspicious candidate for a biography. Montville presents his story as a tragedy, that so gifted an athlete was unable in his prime to compete at the highest level. But Montague himself seems to have been content with the contests he knew he could win, making bets, taking money off his playing partners. As if to make up for the lack of access to his subject's inner life, Montville throws himself into the writing, coasting for paragraphs at a time on the sound of his voice, resonant and garrulous, with a tendency to repeat himself - like a 19th-hole raconteur on his third martini. LaVerne Moore aka John Montague, the subject of "The Mysterious Montague." CARL HIAASEN calls Dan Jenkins "probably the funniest sports journalist ever." No argument here. He is also a novelist, best known for "Semi-Tough" (not a great football novel, as it has been called, but a great novel about football). "The Franchise Babe" is structured along the same lines: a narrator in this case, Jack Brannon, a 47-year-old sportswriter and native of Fort Worth, Jenkins's hometown - recounts the action from the point of view of an unreconstructed, right-wing Texas white guy. "I was at this tournament for chicks," he says. After 20-some years covering the men's tour, Brannon has talked his editor into letting him check out the L.P.G.A. "You could say I was trying to change my luck. Or you could say I'd grown tired of writing Tiger Woods, comma." Here's Brannon's first glimpse, on the first page, of Thurlene Clayton, who is not your average golf mom: "The jacked-up mini was bright blue, the legs were tan. They were toned and shaped and it was a good guess she could kick a hole in the ceiling of a motel room if she was on her back doing what it looked like she could do best." As it happens, Thurlene's 18-year-old daughter, Ginger - the eponymous babe - is racking up the wins, and Brannon knows a cover subject when he sees one. He also knows a conflict of interest, which he has enough scruples to acknowledge but not so many that he feels duty-bound to stop sleeping with the mother, rooting for the daughter and giving her career advice. While Brannon files his copy and volunteers opinions, many unrelated to golf, he inhabits a universe of Jenkins's devising, where a linebacker named Novocain Washington plays for the Giants, an ad agency is called Shallow World and Brannon's editor lives in Old Gun Barrel, Conn. Every once in a while, Brannon opens his mouth and you could swear it's Jenkins talking, grousing about P.G.A. players who "get rich for finishing 10th." Or admitting his ignorance: "In my wholesome life as a sportswriter and recreational golfer, all women's golf had meant to me was four plump ladies in shin-length skirts, cardigan sweaters and floppy hats directly in front of me, and playing so slow and squatting so long behind so many putts that they'd force me to yell, 'Pick it up, Doris - it's good!'" Lady duffers aside, Jenkins, like Hiaasen, is an avid admirer of women. He's a connoisseur of their special effects, like spike heels and halter tops. He appreciates the way they talk, dealing them the best lines and the last laugh. For both authors, the male of the species divides into three subsets: Men Who Rule the World, mostly executives and politicians - arrogant, incompetent, corrupt, clueless but rich. Stand-Up Guys, like detectives and sportswriters - well-meaning but never well paid, clueless to a lesser degree, living out their lives in service of the truth. And Sleazeballs of all descriptions, handsomer and smoother than the Stand-Up Guys, which women may find temporarily confusing. Thurlene Clayton, divorced from a philandering loser who commandeered their daughter's winnings, has a soul sister in Joey Perrone, the heroine of Hiaasen's "Skinny Dip" and a champion swimmer whose two-timing, sex-crazed, money-grubbing husband, Chaz, on a cruise to celebrate their second anniversary, throws her overboard. It should come as no surprise when Chaz turns out to be a Sleazeball. Joey might have known, and the reader was forewarned: he's a golfer with a chronic slice. Golf is a lot like writing. It's exhilarating when you get it right, and the rest of the time it's torture. Holly Brubach writes frequently for The Times.
Critique du Library Journal
At first glance, this looks like an easy acquisition decision: golf is an extremely popular topic and Hiaasen (Nature Girl) is a well-known and much-loved author. Listeners expecting to be entertained at the author's rediscovery of the sport may, however, be slightly disappointed. Why? This audiobook falls short in the narration; Hiaasen's delivery is flat, and his timing is stilted and without comedic impact. Still, his experiences with equipment such as "golf radar" and "rescue clubs" will be enjoyed by duffers everywhere. His confusion over understanding handicaps will undoubtedly resonate with many, as will his respect for odd superstitions and his fear of mortal embarrassment. Hiaasen is popular, and libraries should acquire owing to demand.--Ray Vignovich, West Des Moines P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.