Reading Skywards – Your Friendly Bookshelf

INFORMATION ABOUT THIS BOOK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ FSG Adult
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 2017
Format:  Hardcover, Paperback, audiobook, and ebook
Print length ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
Genre: Humorous Literary Fiction

MY PERSONAL OPINION: “BUCKY F*CKING DENT”

I borrowed this book from my local library. I was interested in reading a book written by actor David Duchovny. I searched a bit about the book, and it was categorized as Humorous Literary Fiction (one of my favorite reads). Halfway through the book, I found the audiobook also available in Libby and was also narrated by David Duchovny… I kept going back and forth from that point, and at times, when possible, both at the same time.

I honestly loved this book. From Chapter 1, I was in for it. For the dark humour, the quirky comments, the info within the lines, and the writing itself, which was easy to follow, fast-paced, and smart. I have a soft spot for books that are smartass books, with mentions of music, writers, history, poetry, foreign language, etc. This book checked all of it.

Then is the heart of the story. The relationship of Ted, the son and struggling writer, and a peanut salesman at Yankee baseball games, with his father, Marty, after knowing of Marty’s advanced lung cancer diagnosis. The once-stranged father and son are reunited while surrounded by animosity, guilt, fear, and hope. With the help of a grief counselor, Mariana, both learned to find each other again. Their conversations are full of honesty, harshness, sarcasm, and are so funny that I found myself laughing out loud.

My father is a baseball fan, and a Yankee fan for many years, and it is so common for me to call him and find him watching a ball game on TV. Now, since moving to Houston, we are Astros fans. And my father makes the trip every year from Panama to Houston to watch games, the same way he went to New York to see the Yankees. This book was a testament for a sports fan. It was a moving story about fathers and sons. It was a story for the losers.

And the end… the end was epic.

PREMISE OF THE BOOK AS FOUND IN AMAZON / GOODREADS:

Ted Fullilove, aka Mr. Peanut, is not like other Ivy League grads. He shares an apartment with Goldberg, his beloved battery-operated fish, sleeps on a bed littered with yellow legal pads penned with what he hopes will be the next great American Novel, and spends the waning days of the Carter administration at Yankee Stadium, waxing poetic while slinging peanuts to pay the rent.

When Ted hears the news that his estranged father, Marty, is dying of lung cancer, he immediately moves back into his childhood home, where a whirlwind of revelations ensues. The browbeating absentee father of Ted’s youth tries to make up for lost time, but his health dips drastically whenever his beloved Red Sox lose. And so, with help from Mariana―the Nuyorican grief counselor with whom Ted promptly falls in love―and a crew of neighborhood old-timers, Ted orchestrates the illusion of a Boston winning streak, enabling Marty and the Red Sox to reverse the Curse of the Bambino and cruise their way to World Series victory. Well, sort of.

David Duchovny’s richly drawn Bucky F*cking Dent explores the bonds between fathers and sons and the age-old rivalry between Yankee fans and the Fenway faithful, and grapples with our urgent need to persevere―and risk everything―in the name of love. Culminating in that fateful moment in October of ’78 when the mighty Bucky Dent hit his way into baseball history with the unlikeliest of home runs, this tender, insightful, and hilarious novel demonstrates how life truly belongs to the losers, and that the long shots are the ones worth betting on.

MY RATING: 5.0

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: DAVID DUCHOVNY

David William Duchovny (born August 7, 1960) is an American actor, writer, producer, director, and singer-songwriter. He is known for playing FBI Agent Fox Mulder on the sci-fi horror action drama show The X-Files and writer Hank Moody on the comedy-drama series Californication, both of which have earned him Golden Globe awards. Duchovny appeared in both of the two X-Files films, the 1998 science fiction-thriller of the same name and the supernatural-thriller The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008). As of May 2015, he has been executive producing and starring in the historically based cop drama Aquarius.

Duchovny has a B.A. in English Literature from Princeton University and an M.A. in English Literature from Yale University.

OTHER BOOKS FROM DAVID DUCHOVNY

• Miss Subways: a Novel
• Holy Cow: a Novel
• Truly Like Lightning: a Novel
• About time: Poems
• The Reservoir: a Novella