Frederick Exley recounts his life as the son of a hero-worshipped high school athlete who is doomed to be a spectator not only of sports, but of life. From irresponsible drifter, to dreamer of impossible dreams, to drunkard, to frequent patient at an insane asylum, Exley carried baggage from his childhood through much of his adult life, never feeling he could escape the dark cloud of expectation that hung over him. When Frank Gifford, former New York Giants backfield star, is injured, Exley is jolted into painful realizations about his life, and a confession.
This fictional memoir, the first of an autobiographical trilogy, traces a self professed failure's nightmarish decent into the underside of American life and his resurrection to the wisdom that emerges from despair.
Frederick Exley is the author of A Fan’s Notes, Pages from a Cold Island, and Last Notes from Home. He was nominated for a National Book Award, was the recipient of the William Faulkner Award, received the National Institute of Arts and Letters Rosenthal Award, and won a Playboy silver medal for the best nonfiction piece of 1974. He also received a Rockefeller Foundation grant, a Harper-Saxton Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Frederick Exley died in 1992.
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