cover image Doubles

Doubles

Nic Brown, Counterpoint, $15.95 paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-58243-507-7

Brown (Floodmakers) returns with another excellent ensemble character study, this one focusing on a group of friends and lovers radiating out from former tennis doubles partners Slow and Kaz. Slow holds himself responsible for the car accident hat put his wife, Anne, in a coma, and has since hung up his racket. After months of stopgap clerical work and depression, he is rescued by his eccentric and charismatic coach, Manny, who is trying to force Slow into a reunion with his former tennis partner, Kaz. So begins an ill-fated trip to New York, where Slow contemplates returning to the game and learns heartbreaking truths about his wife, his friends, and himself. The story has far more to say about love than tennis, but it ponders a changing sport as it transitions from the world of the impeccably mannered Arthur Ashe to bad boy Andre Agassi with the same care that it examines the inner life of its characters. The result is that rare sports novel with big heart and wide appeal. (July)