cover image The Last Magic Summer: A Season with My Son: A Memoir

The Last Magic Summer: A Season with My Son: A Memoir

Peter Gent. William Morrow & Company, $24 (256pp) ISBN 978-0-688-13365-8

Much of the text early on has to do with the bitter and prolonged divorce in the 1980s of ex-NFL player Gent (North Dallas Forty) and his second wife, whom he portrays as a lying, thieving birdbrain (deciding that she wants a career, she is torn between painting and selling real estate) who is determined to use their son, Carter, as a bargaining chip in their battles. And, as if the catalogue of his domestic woes is insufficient, Gent provides details on his brother's death from cancer, his own recurring back injury and the decline of his hometown of Bangor, Mich., where even the trees died, of Dutch elm disease. What uplift there is here is provided by his account of the summer of 1993, when Gent coached and Carter starred on the Bangor Connie Mack League team, which made it to the district finals, then lost. But with the end of the summer, Carter went off to college, leaving Gent alone with his memories and the prospect of a lonely old age. Intended to be poignant, the story is only gloomy. (June)