Spikes

In a genre filled with magic eight-irons and caddies half-Scottish and half-divine, SPIKES stands out. It's elegantly written, funny, literarily and psychologically complex--I think it will be be one of the classic golf novels.

I've never played a stroke of golf (have I even hefted a club?) and I know I can't possibly stake a claim to the game using my minigolf experience: I always did hit the windmill blade as it ratcheted past the mouse hole. But so what? It doesn't matter. You don't need to know golf to enjoy "Spikes." Open yourself up to the good old-fashioned affinal angst which gets Brian going in the morning and let the surely precise mentions of four-irons, bogeys, and green strategy breeze by: the real meat of the book lies in the question: Does this journeyman golfer have the guts to make his journey into self-discovery more than just an excursion? Will he be able to choose between strong yet delusive enticements and a marriage in which he plays the role of a human pressure plate? And all this without a therapist? Find out and be entertained along the way. As Tallulah Bankhead once said: "Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it." "Spikes" is a witty, fluent and semi-sweet novel which describes one person troubling to be what he is. Highly recommended.

Michael Griffith has written a real winner here. It helps if you are really into golf, but it is not necessary. A morality tale told in a hilarious way!! There is one scene where the central character, a frustrated guy trying to make it on a fourth rate golf tour for losers who can only dream of the "big tour", meets a TV commentator for dinner after he has misled her into thinking he is the guy who just shot 59. In fact he shot 77, though he played in the same group as the 59 shooter. The repartee when they meed at the appointed place and the way she puts him down is one of the funniest things I have read in my entire life. Later, when the guy who really shot 59 meets them "accidentally" just as they are getting ready to have dinner, there ensues a scene and commentary that is only a hair behind the first meeting scene in its hilarity, especially the monologue of Bird (the 59 shooter).This book is a jewel!!

With his dense, allusive voice, the narrator of Michael Griffith's first novel doesn't sound like a stereotypical professional golfer. But that's appropriate, because Brian Schwan doesn't play his sport like a professional golfer either. He never wins, doesn't earn back his tournament fees, and, when in danger of actually competing with other pros, sees his game fall apart even further. Brian's wife is after him to quit the circuit, to come home, be a real husband and start a family. So it is little wonder that when the opportunity arrives, Brian trades lives: a lovely but ill-informed TV reporter mistakes him for his successful opponent, and Brian plays along. The rest of the novel follows from this goofy premise and, within the closed world of its telling, succeeds with a charming mix of self-denigrating humor, sheer fantasy, hope and the conventional American dream of sporting success. All told in Griffith's eloquent prose. Of course, the story should trace Brian's collapse, the shattering of his athletic reputation, his marriage and his sense of self. But it doesn't, and when at the conclusion Brian says, "I feel like singing," when he reclaims his own name in a kind of triumph, the reader feels the satisfaction inherent in the best of fables. "Spikes" is a sports novel for the new millennium, its surface all attitude and posture, its depths resonant with yearning.

Michael Griffith's SPIKES, although ostensibly about golf, is about so much more than a game. Brian Schwan, a once promising golfer now scrapping for a win in the minor leagues of golf, poses on a whim as Bird Soulsby, his playing partner who has just shot a record-tying 59. Brian knows he is washed up. His wife Rosa has supported him all these years, but now she wants stability - a child and a full-time husband. Brian's own game withered his chances for a cut, so, when a local reporter mistakes him for Bird, he feels he has nothing to lose. For once, he wants to be a winner. The events that follow are both hilarious and bittersweet.Told in first-person narrative, the voice here is impeccable, singing with wit and sharp-eyed insight, sometimes philosophical and others flip - but always Brian. Bird Soulsby, a character who is so mystical that he has no right to be believable, comes off as pure flesh and blood, a man worthy of both a 59 and a shot at the PGA tour. Brian's wife Rosa, although she appears only in flashbacks, carves a presence in the story, as does Brian's father as he hides in the shrubbery flanking the holes, not wanting to be seen but wanting to watch his son and his magnificent talent at work.I have a confession: I don't like golf, but I loved this book. I'm sure golf-lovers will find even more to like than I did. Ultimately, though, golf is only a metaphor here for the trials, the decisions, the setbacks, the triumphs, and the responsibilities we face every day which define who we are.