Sweet: An Eight-Ball Odyssey

Byer was a 30-year-old vice-president at a feature film company in New York City when she got the career blues. She didn't leave her job, but admits that the glamour had worn thin, replaced by a feeling of emptiness. In this neatly told but overlong memoir, she chronicles her quest for meaning and complexity, which she finds in a foreign subculture: the pool room. The initial attraction is a chance to find a private, elegant world for herself. A competitive Ivy League achiever, Byer is drawn to the players' quest for perfection. Pool, which requires "dexterity, physical grace and unwavering focus," is a demanding master. But it's also a dark world of has-beens, addictions, obsessions and self-invention, propelled by intoxicating highs and humiliating lows. Byer takes readers inside the pool scene: the players, lessons, teams, rankings and history of this extraordinary sport. She even shares her brief affairs with other players. But while the pool world is a fascinating, even hypnotic one, the repetitive description of her journey is not. This love letter to the game is strictly for pool fans, who will delight in the inside take as well as the validation. (Mar.)